


the part of you they’ll never see (is the part you’ve shown to me)

by The_Blonde



Series: do what you gotta do [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Established Relationship, M/M, art heist (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 125,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7512530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blonde/pseuds/The_Blonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes it’s strange to think that he’s met Dan with three different names, in two different places. Sometimes he has to catch himself from referring to Dylan like he was a real person, an actual ex-boyfriend, rather than the same boyfriend he has now, just under a different name. Sometimes the backstory that he’s created for Dylan (the one Dan was too lazy to commit to) takes on a life of its own. But then, he did spend a few lonely months coming up with it."</p><p>Or: Editing Student Phils and their Ex Art Thief boyfriends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is again from Nina Simone's "Do What You Gotta Do".

Phil is helping his mother with the dishes, in his parents’ Isle of Man house, both of them staring out of the kitchen window across the sprawling front garden, where Dan is standing with Phil’s dad, pretending to be interested in the rock garden.

His mother frowns a little at Dan (all in black, expensive coat, hair flying around his face in the wind) “so how exactly did you meet him?”

(that hadn’t gone well, at dinner. He’d spent most of the afternoon in the hotel trying to get Dan to calm down about _meeting your parents, I never meet anyone’s parents, is this a good idea_ so they hadn’t come up with a decent story. When his mother had asked Dan had choked on his mouthful of casserole and Phil, desperately, just said “at work” in the most suspicious way he could possibly have said it)

He says “oh, you know, just at the gallery.”

“The gallery? Which one?”

Phil can’t say Manchester, for obvious reasons. Manchester still catches in his heart, a little. He says “the Tate.”

His mother huffs a little, as she always does at any mention of the Tate, and starts moving the dried dishes away. “He could have phoned you then. After all that happened."

Dan, outside, turns his head to try and make his hair blow in all the same direction, and catches Phil’s eye, as he always does. He smiles, hair fluttering, all the zippers on his ridiculous coat catching the sun, waves a mittened hand in Phil’s direction. Phil loves him so (so) much.

Phil says “it’s a long story.”

~*~

Phil loves him so (so) much and it’s the best thing in the world. The best thing in the universe. He loves walking into the bar and seeing the exact moment where Dan looks up and realises that he’s there. He loves going through their photos and teasing Dan, _why are you never looking at the camera, why are you always looking at me?_ , every single photo in every single frame displaying the right side of Dan’s face. Dan, weakly, would protest _that’s my best side_ , but later, much later, he would say _I just like looking at you. That’s all_.

His mother, months and months ago, had asked “what happened to Dylan? Why did we never meet Dylan?”

Phil said “oh, he emigrated. Really suddenly. He was quite similar to Dan though, in lots of ways.”

Sometimes it’s strange to think that he’s met Dan with three different names, in two different places. Sometimes he has to catch himself from referring to Dylan like he was a real person, an actual ex-boyfriend, rather than the same boyfriend he has now, just under a different name. Sometimes the backstory that he’s created for Dylan (the one Dan was too lazy to commit to) takes on a life of its own. But then, he did spend a few lonely months coming up with it.

At the bar, every Friday, Dan finishes with the theme to Attack on Titan, even though it’s in no way a show tune and confuses everyone in the room. Everyone except the two of them. Phil sometimes gets up to play the melody, terribly, and Dan will act like he did amazingly and say “my boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen” as Phil walks through confused applause back to the bar.

Phil wishes sometimes that he and Dan could, somehow, live in that moment where it’s just them, and he could somehow cocoon Dan away from the rest of the world and all of their history. Their actual backstory.

He tries to explain this, on the tube home, after slightly too many bright pink cocktails. Dan, laughing, saying “you want to live in the theme tune to Attack on Titan?”

Phil, exasperated, “I’m not explaining it right.”

Dan, heart eyes turned up to one hundred, “no, I get it. I wish we could live in the theme tune too."

“You’re teasing me.”

“Only because I love you.”

Dan says _I love you_ constantly, as though making up for all the times he didn’t before, all the times he thought they were too obvious. He says it when Phil waits up for him to get back from work. When Phil brings him a cup of tea without him asking, in the middle of an internet binge. When he walks into any room in the flat and sees Phil [mismatched socks, glasses, bedhead, trying to coax a half dead plant back to life], says it with complete surprise but with so much meaning that Phil hears it like he’s remembering a dream. Every time.

~*~

Dan says “that was okay, right? I was okay?” when they’re walking back to the hotel, careful steps on the icy pavement. He has a tight grip on Phil’s sleeve, as though determined to take him down too, if he falls.

Phil says “you were fine” because he had been. Dan (for all his stressing) gives good parent, he’s polite, acts interested in all the right things, looks at every photo. “They liked you, honestly”

Dan smiles, relieved. “Good. I liked them. It was like being with three different versions of you.”

Phil laughs, almost slips. “Is that a good thing?”

“Of course it is” Dan stops, steadies Phil. “It’s the best thing."

Phil flushes slightly, as he always does when he receives Dan’s complete attention. “Well, you’re biased.”

Dan says “possibly” and kisses him. His teeth are chattering and his cheeks are cold (the coat, bought for fashion only, isn’t exactly warm), Phil cups his face in his gloved hands and sighs. 

Kissing Dan always makes him lose his balance, in so many ways. He says “this isn’t the best place” against Dan’s mouth. “I’m going to fall over.”

Dan laughs and says “probably” but doesn’t stop.

~*~

(Phil’s mother, when they got to the house, blinked at Dan and said “goodness, you’re very pretty, aren’t you?” and Dan had flushed and dimpled and basically proven her point. Later, by the sink, she’d repeated “he’s very pretty, isn’t he?” in a slightly different tone of voice.)

~*~

The thing is that sometimes Phil forgets the story. The actual one. He gets very caught up in the we-worked-together-and-then-we-talked-at-a-bar narrative that he and Dan have, without meaning to, created for each other.

(forgets is maybe the wrong word. Pushes to the deepest crevices of his brain is maybe more apt.)

Sometimes they’ll be watching tv, or something on the internet, or even just talking to someone about their holidays, and maybe Paris will come up. Or Chicago. Boston. Amsterdam. 

And Dan will say “oh, I’ve been there.”

Phil will say “ _when?_ ”

And Dan will suddenly look incredibly uncomfortable, answering both the when and the why without meaning to.

Those moments are the same as tripping over, as bumping into furniture, all things Phil does frequently -the sudden blunt pain, followed by blinking, embarrassed, confusion.

Dan will usually say, quickly, “oh, ages ago. I don’t really remember."

~*~

His mother said, to Dan, “I’m glad he’s found someone nice. The last one just up and left with no explanation. Who doesn’t know that they’re emigrating?”

Dan, politely, without looking at Phil, replied “he emigrated?”

“Yes, we never even met him. Where did you say he went, Phil? Japan? Something with baby pandas wasn’t it?”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “Baby pandas?”

Phil, giving his mother as close to an annoyed look as he can manage, said “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Dan, later, repeated “baby pandas?” in a careful, neutral tone.

“I had to think of something.” 

Dan walked to where Phil was lying, starfished across the hotel bed, draped himself across Phil’s chest, cheek to Phil’s shoulder. He said “you gave him your dream job.” 

He doesn’t muffle words that Phil can’t hear. Not anymore.

“I suppose I did” Phil dropped a kiss to the top of Dan’s head. He has a lot of dream jobs, in all honesty. Most of them involve baby animals of some description. “But that’s just because she put me on the spot a bit. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“I didn’t realise that you spoke to them about Dylan.”

“About _you_.”

There was a long pause, Phil carded his fingers through Dan’s hair until Dan, finally, said “it’s weird that we’re talking about him like he was his own person.”

Phil replied “I guess so” and looped his arms around Dan’s waist, pulled him up so they were face to face, kissed him as a way to end the whole odd conversation.

~*~

Or sometimes they’ll be at a pub quiz, points ahead of every other team, and Chris, in utter disbelief, will say “wow, Dan, you know a lot about classic paintings.”

Dan will usually shrug and say “I suppose” but only Phil will see the whitening of his knuckles, the tightening of his hand around his drink.

~*~

When he’s not at the bar Dan teaches piano, to beginners, at one of the studios in Guildhall. His students are mostly under twelve and Dan gets ridiculously attached to all of them, gets teased by the other tutors for not being strict enough, for not setting strict rehearsal guidelines and practice hours, letting the students call him by his first name.

Dan plays it cool and says “what can I say, I’m just lazy like that” but Phil knows that’s not it. Dan’s lazy in lots of ways, hundreds of ways, but the piano is one of the few things that he _isn’t_ a huge procrastinator about (Phil is one of the others).

They’ve been to a few student recitals and Dan sat on the edge of his seat throughout, fingers drumming against his knees. Jumping up to give a standing ovation before the parents did. 

“Maybe you should start a youtube channel, one of those piano tutorial ones,” Phil suggested, on the way back from one concert, Dan all flushed and proud, carrying a little pile of thank you cards.

Dan laughed and said “really, _me_? Seems like too much work.”

“I could edit for you. I wouldn’t mind.”

Dan had stilled a little, post recital giddiness instantly gone, and replied “I wouldn’t be able to show my face though. Just in case. How would that work?”

Phil said “why?” and, off Dan’s incredulous look, added “oh. I forgot.”

“You _forgot_?” Dan looked somewhere between awe and concern, an odd mix of emotions that mostly made him look envious. Envious of what? Phil’s ability to brush things to one side? “How could you possibly -”

Phil said, honestly, “I don’t know. I just choose not to think about it. I prefer to think about what we’ve got now.”

He helped Dan arrange the thank you cards across the Ophelia piano, as neatly as possible, read every message aloud while Dan blushed and said “stttoooopp” without really meaning it ( _you’re the only person who ever helped me understand arpeggios; i would never have played in public if you hadn’t helped me; you’re way better than my last teacher_ etc etc).

After reading the last one ( _if you ever leave i will QUIT THE PIANO_ ) Phil said “I’m so proud of you.”

Dan blushed again, not yet recovered from previous blushes, still slightly pink in the face, and said “thank you.”

He said _thank you_ again later, tracing the shell of Phil’s ear with his fingertip, Phil’s head on his chest, too tired to move.

Phil mumbled “for what?”

“Everything really.”

“That’s a lot of things.”

It sounded like the echo of a past conversation, a half remembered half repressed shadow of _something_. Dan huffed a tiny caught breath, and Phil instantly added “you’re welcome.”

~*~

Getting back to the flat after his final lecture of the day, having stopped to get a pizza, which he promptly drops when he gets to their door and there’s already someone there. A blond someone, dressed in head-to-toe peppermint green, hair swept off his face. He has a parcel propped against his legs.

Blond says “oh, it’s you” in a possibly Scandinavian accent that Phil can’t place. “Is Dan home?”

Phil says “no” which in hindsight, was a pretty naive thing to do. 

(he’s too trusting, all the time. It’s really endearing. Until it’s not.)

Blond says “okay” then “I’m Felix, by the way.”

Phil says “I’m Phil.”

“I know who you are.”

“Oh” says Phil, at a loss at what else to say. “I’ll tell him that you -”

“I have a parcel for him. There’s a letter inside it.”

“A letter?”

“It’s old fashioned but I don’t have his number anymore. I wrote it in case he wasn’t at home. Which he isn’t,” Felix sounds annoyed, like Dan has set out to personally avoid him. He kneels, collects the parcel and hands it to Phil.

The parcel is painting shaped. Phil, obviously, notices straight away. He says “what -”

“I know that you know what it is, you’re not stupid,” Felix rolls his eyes. “Tell him I feel bad about this. Tell him I sounded regretful or something.”

“Regretful,” Phil echoes. 

Felix says “yes” and, genuinely, both sounds and looks exactly that. Full of regret. “I don’t like going back on my word. But circumstances change and I sort of need his help with something.”

Phil, holding the parcel, says “how do you know that I’ll even give this to him?”

Felix blinks like he’d never even considered that Phil wouldn’t. 

“If you’re who I _think_ you are -”

“Who you think I am? You mean he never talks about me? That hurts my feelings.”

“ - then I might just go and throw this in the canal and never mention it again.”

“I wouldn’t do that, it’s a pretty nice painting.”

Phil sighs, says “ _are_ you who I think you are?”

Felix tilts his head to one side. “It depends. But probably.”

“What does the letter say?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Phil, for some reason, says “but he’s happy here.”

Felix looks taken aback, an expression he immediately blinks away. “I’m not _taking_ him anywhere. I just need to borrow his expertise. For a bit.”

“He doesn’t do that anymore.” 

He lives _here_ , Phil thinks, wildly. He lives here with me and he teaches piano and plays in a bar every other evening. He comes to meet me after work every single day, even if it’s raining and he hates going out in the rain because it makes his hair curly. We love each other. He’s happy _here_.

Felix says “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask him if I wasn’t desperate.”

“Is it bad? Has something gone wrong?” Phil is clutching the parcel to his chest, arms wrapped around it. “I don’t want -”

“He wouldn’t want me telling you,” Felix, thoroughly uncomfortable with the whole conversation, leans over to pat Phil’s arm. “Nice to meet you in person.”

When he leaves Phil stays standing on the spot for a few seconds then abandons his dropped pizza to go into the flat, straight to the balcony, where he stands between the pastel begonias and stares down into Camden Lock. Balances the painting on the edge of the balcony railing. 

He doesn’t throw it in. He wants to but he can’t quite give that final little push. Dan would find out, somehow, from someone. Felix would surely just keep coming back until he got an answer. The painting, the heavy weight of it in his hands, feels like a ticking bomb, waiting to go off. It doesn’t usually go well for him and Dan, paintings hidden in anonymous parcels. Or, it hadn’t gone well the first time in particular.

~*~

The first time Phil met Dan’s parents was also the first time Dan had seen his parents in “a ridiculously long time”. Phil doesn’t know how long ridiculously long is exactly, but it seemed like years, from the amount of tears when Dan’s mother met them at the door.

She had looked at Dan like she didn’t quite recognise him, or that she _did_ and couldn’t believe he was real. A sort of rose tinted nostalgia, holding up her hand like she could pause him in place. She kept talking about how much weight he’d lost, what his hair looked like, what he was wearing and Phil had wondered when exactly Dan had last been home (except he doesn’t call it home. He had said, on the train, very deliberately, that they were going to “my parents’ house.”)

Phil had helped with the cleaning up after dinner and, when she was sure Dan was out of earshot, Mrs Howell had leaned towards him and said “he looks so happy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that happy.”

Phil said “oh” and left an uncomfortable pause where he should have said something else, but didn’t. Not from not knowing what to say, but from wanting to say too much.

~*~

Phil waits up right until Dan gets back. He doesn’t usually, on a Wednesday, he has an 8am seminar and Dan doesn’t come home until at least 1, but he felt like he should. Dan’s footsteps, coming through the hall, sound like a drumroll, the start of something.

Dan, instantly, says “what’s wrong?” before he’s even taken his coat off. 

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ” Phil says, unconvincingly. “Just, um -”

Dan says “what?”, and repeats “what?” when he sees the parcel on their other sofa. Unassumingly propped up, completely unaware of the issues it’s causing. “What’s that?”

“Come _on_ Dan” Phil replies, mildly. “We both know what it is.”

He should have known really, that the whole thing was too good to last.

~*~

They never talk about it, not since the time on the balcony the day after Phil came back, months ago, when he had said _let’s never talk about this again_ and so they hadn’t done. Phil sometimes regretted even saying it. He should have said _let’s talk about this a little bit. Sometimes_.

He wonders sometimes if he’s really enough for Dan, if this comfortable life of theirs isn’t just incredibly boring, after years spent jumping off speedboats, or hanging from ceilings above lasers, or whatever else Dan used to do, in Phil’s head. Wonders if Dan, secretly, wants to do one last job, properly.

Dan comes to meet Phil after work, he’s always a little bit late, leaves Phil standing outside the building for a few minutes on his own, then suddenly appears, like he’s been there the whole time.

Phil always says “where have you been?”

Dan always says “I was here. I was just watching you for a bit.”

Phil used to say “well, that’s creepy” without really meaning it, but he doesn’t anymore. He says “it’s just me. You can see me all the time.”

Now standing outside the building on his own, waiting in anticipation, he preens a little under the hidden attention, tries to lean nonchalantly against a wall, looking studious and hopefully not like he’s trying too hard. He still says _where have you been?_ like it’s a surprise, like he hasn’t been standing, posing, waiting for Dan to unhide himself.

~*~

Dan, wildly, says “he was here? Why was he here?”

“I don’t _know_ \- he left you a note. And that parcel.”

Dan says “a _note_?” then, gripping Phil’s shoulders “what did he say to you?”

“Nothing much really.”

“He shouldn’t be speaking to you. He shouldn’t even be _here_.”

Phil says “the note is in the parcel.”

Dan, confused, says “what?”

“He said the note is in the parcel. He wrote it because he doesn’t have your number anymore. And also I had to say that he sounded regretful.”

Dan’s hands, still on Phil’s shoulders, soften a little; one slides up into Phil’s hair, thumb to his temple. He must be doing the head shaking thing again. Dan says “he shouldn’t be speaking to you.”

“Why? He wasn’t rude or anything."

“I just don’t like the thought of it” Dan gives the parcel a wary glance. “I don’t like the thought of that being here either.”

“He said he feels bad but circumstances change.”

“What circumstances?”

“I don’t know, there’s a letter. In the parcel.”

The glance Dan gives the parcel isn’t wary anymore, it’s almost intrigued. Interested. Phil thinks _no wait, come back_.

“Don’t open it.”

Dan says “what?”

“I was going to throw it in the lock.”

Dan looks horrified at the thought of anything like that happening to a painting. “But you didn’t."

“It’s not my decision to make. It’s not _for_ me.”

They leave it propped on the sofa but Dan, next to Phil, usually a heavy sleeper who doesn’t move an inch, tosses and turns the entire night, bangs Phil with his elbows, his knees. Eventually Phil reaches out and catches his hands, holds him still, Dan makes a small sound under his breath, freezes like something caught in a trap and then sighs. Phil thinks, again, _come back_ even though Dan hasn’t gone anywhere.

~*~

Phil doesn’t say _I love you_ as much as Dan does. Not out loud anyway. He’s hugely obvious about it in every other way, says _that’s my boyfriend!_ to every new attendee at the bar, gives standing ovations to everything Dan plays, puts all of his thank you cards into one frame, so they can display them forever, does all the small talk at parties so Dan doesn’t have to, swiftly changes the subject if he can see Dan getting awkward, doesn’t leave his side if they’re somewhere with a lot of new people. Lets him out of basements. Gives him a piano.

When the Ophelia piano finally got delivered from the Tate Dan had spent most of the day circling it, hand reaching out like he was scared to touch it, like his fingerprints would ruin it somehow, like someone was going to jump in and take it away.

He waited for Phil to get back from work, sat at the bench, and played Fur Elise with no introduction, a look of pure joy on his face. Phil stood and watched him, feeling like his heart was going to burst, like it was just the two of them in the entire world.

Dan said “this is the best thing anyone has ever gotten me. I can’t even say thank you, it doesn’t seem like enough.”

Phil said “you’re welcome. I love you.”

~*~

Phil doesn’t recognise the painting when he finds it, the next morning, propped up in their hallway, facing the wall. He almost doesn’t turn it around but curiosity gets the better of him. It looks like the docks of somewhere, a lot of blue, tiny orange sun.

A painting Phil might have chosen. A memory of himself from a year ago saying _I mostly just like all the blue_ , lamely, desperately trying to get the cute cleaner with the sad eyes to stay talking to him. 

Dan says, from the kitchen, knowing exactly what Phil’s doing, “it’s a Monet.”

Phil says “right.”

“That’s how this all started. With a Monet.”

Phil says “right” again. His tone is flat, he doesn’t mean for it to be.

Dan appears in the doorway and says “Phil.”

“You opened it.”

Dan attempts to avoid his eyes but that’s always impossible, with them. They end up staring at each other instead. Dan says “I had to.”

“That’s fine,” Phil looks at the Monet again. “I have to go. I’m late for my seminar.”

“You’re not going to ask about the letter?”

Phil says “no” and leaves.

~*~

(his mother had said “he’s very pretty, isn’t he?” slightly suspiciously, like Dan had no business running around with his hair, and his dimples, and his face. Phil had ignored her tone and said “yes, he is”, in the same casual way that he brushes off similar remarks at the bar, at work, with his friends, faking obliviousness to what they’re trying to say _why is he with you he’s not going to stick around_. They’ve proven them all wrong so far.)

~*~

Dan is still in the kitchen, almost late for work, by Phil’s reckoning. He jumps a little when Phil comes through the door, startled expression on his face giving way to complete relief, like he wasn’t sure if Phil was coming back (which makes no sense. Phil always comes back)

Dan says “I have to tell you what’s in the letter.”

(Dan is obsessed with there being no secrets between them, even tiny white lies. There are some mornings where he will solemnly take Phil to one side and say _I’m sorry about this but…._ and Phil will think all kinds of awful scenarios before Dan will finish _.....I deleted the last episode of Bake Off_.)

Phil says “you don’t have to.”

(Phil tells Dan white lies all the time. I didn’t eat your cereal. I didn’t buy another candle. That’s not a new houseplant, it’s been there the whole time. Tiny things that Dan always works out and always always looks completely betrayed by.)

Phil says “I’d rather not know. To be honest.”

Dan says “how would you rather not know? I would _have_ to know” because Dan _would_ have to know, needs to know everything about Phil. “It would be driving me crazy.” 

“It’s not driving me crazy,” another white lie. 

“I have to go to work. I don’t want to go if we’re -” Dan gestures between the two of them.

“If we’re what?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re not fighting Dan, we never fight” maybe they should sometimes. The lack of fighting doesn’t mean that they never have anything to fight about, more that it’s difficult for them, as a combination, to get angry with each other. “Go to work. It’s okay.”

Dan says “is it? Really?”

Phil kisses him as he leaves, a peck to the hinge of his jaw, below his ear, and Dan leans forward until his forehead is on Phil’s shoulder. Phil says “is it a job? Is he asking for a job?”

“I thought that you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t. But I do at the same time.”

“We’ll talk about it when I get home” there’s an uplift on the final word, turning it into a question. Dan leans back so that he can see Phil’s face. 

Phil says “okay” with the same amount of uplift. Dan scrunches up his nose, confused. Phil says, “I love you” with no uplift whatsoever, an absolute statement of truth.

Dan visibly relaxes. “I love you too.”

Phil pulls his shirt collar, reaches over and pulls Dan’s and, somewhere between the two, thinks that he can’t lose this, can’t lose Dan, not again. Can’t relive the whole miserable experience. 

Dan says “hey” and Phil realises that he still has Dan’s collar between his fingers. “We’ll talk about it. Nothing’s happened, I’m not going anywhere.”

Phil thinks nothing’s happened _yet_ and releases Dan from his grasp.

~*~

There’s another painting. A woman next to a vase overflowing with flowers. The flowers are quite pretty (the woman, extreme right of frame, is not appreciating them). A note, on top of the parcel, saying _he likes flowers, doesn’t he? Answer my letter_ in over the top cursive.

It’s been put down the back of the sofa. Phil only notices it when he’s going to bed, sees the gold of the frame catch the lamplight. 

The note is probably aimed at him, it probably arrived while he was at class, stuffed down the back on the sofa because Dan would have panicked and had no clue where else to hide it. 

For all his time working in galleries Phil doesn’t really _get_ art. There’s a few he likes, a few obvious choices (one of which is carefully placed at the exact centre of one of their photo collages), but mostly not. He always feels like he’s missing something, not quite understanding what it’s trying to tell him. 

He’s probably missing something by not recognising the artist, some sort of forming pattern that’s going straight over his head. Dan can recognise artists by brushstroke alone, can identify whether something is a fake by looking at it once. Phil can sometimes hear him, watching Antiques Roadshow, sighing at the tv about how you can obviously tell that’s not a real David Hockney, _god_. 

(this painting is probably trying to tell him _wow, you thought you could keep him with you. You thought not talking about it was a great idea, well done Phil_.)

~*~

On one Friday a couple from New York came into the bar. Older, expensively dressed, the woman in furs. When the guy spotted Dan he did a legitimate double take and said “ _Harry?_ ”

Dan, wearing a name tag with his actual name on it, said “no, sorry” in a dismissive way but Phil could see the shock in his eyes. 

“That’s so weird, you look _exactly_ like -”

Dan repeated “no, sorry” and the guy shrugged and sauntered off.

Phil wanted to be casual, wanted to say _what, were you going through all of One Direction with your fake names?_ , but somehow it felt like a abrupt pull to his heart. A name he hadn’t met. A version of Dan in New York. _Harry_. 

Dan had kept staring after him after the couple had left, gone to their seats. Waiting for Phil to say something. But Phil didn’t. Dan sighed. 

Phil knows that one of the (very few, thankfully) things that annoy Dan about him is his passivity, never questioning, always trusting. _I hate that you forgive so easily Phil, you should make people fight for you more_. Sitting back and waiting for things to blow over.

Dan said “do you want to ask me anything, about -” he waved his hand over to the New York couple.

Phil said “about what?”

Dan, slowly, carefully, considering each word, said “I stole a sculpture from him. Pretended to be an art student and managed to get after hour access to the gallery. I was literally the only person who could possibly have done it and -”

Phil, loudly, said “aren’t you late for the piano?”

Dan stopped mid sentence, blinked at Phil. “I suppose.”

He didn’t finish with Attack on Titan, didn’t say _my boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen_ , but he did take Phil’s hand when they walked to the tube and, later, hummed an entire symphony of _iloveyou_ into Phil’s neck during the kind of hand clasping, gentle sex that warms them both down to their toes.

(Dan possibly gasped _my boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen_ at the end which makes Phil laugh and pinch his side, and they never spoke about the couple from New York ever again.)

~*~

He doesn’t go to bed. He carries the painting to one of their guest bedrooms, feeling sad about leaving it down the back of the sofa, is not at all surprised when he goes to the room they use the least and finds another painting, face down on the bed.

(this one is odd looking, he has to stare at it for a while before he fully understands what it is. _It’s a piano_ says the note, answering him. _Answer me please. I’m being serious. I wouldn’t ask if_ the next sentence is scribbled over, so aggressively that Phil looks for a mark on the canvas)

Flowers next to a piano. A painting filled with blue in the hall. Phil can’t even deal with the sheer amount of memories that this causes, a tidal wave that crashes right over his head, completely envelops him.

~*~

Phil had met Brigitta Palmarsdottir once; they had a special closing party at the Tate, a few months after the attempted robbery. He’d been invited as a special guest. He’d wanted to take Dan, couldn’t imagine walking back into that place without Dan at his side, but Dan had (rightly, sensibly) said that was probably a bad idea. Phil went by himself, wore a green shirt that he didn’t even like and tried to avoid speaking to any of the other security guards.

Brigitta Palmarsdottir was petite and blonde with an accent that sounded like she was speaking elvish (a tuneful whispering). She said “thank you. For saving my painting.”

Phil said “you’re welcome.”

If Dan had said, on that night, _we’re stealing the llama, you and me_ , Phil would have done it. Phil would have broken through every lock in the place, cut the llama right out of its frame. He would have done it if Dan had wanted him to, if it would have kept Dan with him. He would have waltzed right out of the Tate with her painting under his arm. 

Brigitta Palmarsdottir added “it was very brave, what you did.”

Phil said “not really” and he wasn’t even being modest, it was the absolute truth.

One of the girls from the gift shop, the one with the lovely hair, bouncing around her face in ringlets, skipped up to him and asked if he ever saw Liam around, if they ever spoke, and Phil almost said _who?_ but just about saved himself.

He said “no, not really” and she looked disappointed. 

“He disappeared” she said. “Like he never even existed.”

Well, he didn’t, Phil wants to say.

~*~

Isle of Man, storm brewing, sky the colour of slate. Martyn had wanted to take a walk, after dinner, and Phil had agreed, even though the wind was so loud that they couldn’t keep up a decent conversation and his Converse kept getting stuck in the mud.

Martyn said, hands cupped around his mouth, “why didn’t you wear proper shoes?”

Phil said “I don’t have any” poutily, in the same way he always did when they were kids and _someone_ (usually Martyn) would suggest a hike, or a trek, or _camping_. “Why would I have any?”

Martyn said “what?” and, when Phil didn’t repeat himself, added “Dan seems nice.”

(Dan was currently sat in on his mother’s floral print sofa, pile of photo albums on his lap, a Lester parent on either side of him, ready to go through every twenty nine years of Phil’s life so far. Phil said _it’ll be boring_ and Dan, eyes shining, already opening the first page, said _it absolutely won’t_.)

Phil said “yeah, he is” loud enough for Martyn to hear and not quite big enough for what he actually feels about Dan.

“How did you meet again? You didn’t really say.”

Phil, under the wind, said “he used to steal art. He stole the Van Gogh from Manchester and I let him escape. Then he came to the Tate and faked a robbery there so I’d get all the reward.”

Martyn cupped his hand around his ear and said “sorry, what?”

Phil shouted “oh, just at work.”

“Really? It looked like you said more than that.”

~*~

Dan says “Phil” in a horrified way and Phil, snapping awake, realises that he’s fallen asleep in the guest bedroom.

Phil, blinking back to consciousness, says “no, I didn’t mean to. I was just -”

“It’s late. I thought you might still be up” Dan still looks dismayed. “I didn’t think that you’d be in here, I didn’t think we’d argued that badly.”

“We didn’t argue,” Phil says. “We never argue.”

“Then why are you here?” - valid question. It’s the guest bedroom that they don’t even use for guests.

“I was thinking. And then I fell asleep.”

Dan says “what were you thinking about?”

Phil feels himself shaking his head, Dan is there instantly, fingertips to his temples. “Lots of stuff I guess.”

“Tell me what you were thinking about.”

Phil shakes his head again, hair brushing against Dan’s chest and pushes himself up off the bed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not really important.”

Dan freezes in time for a second, hands still outstretched, then says “you’re coming to bed?” like there’s any reason why Phil wouldn’t be, like he already isn’t halfway down the hall to their room. 

Phil stops, turns back to face him, and says “tell me what was in the letter.”

Dan, coming out of the guest room, stumbles, missing a step, and says “I thought you didn’t -”

“I didn’t. But I guess I do now. Maybe it’s something I can help with.”

Dan gives him a searching look. “I’m not sure about that.”

“I found the other paintings.”

“I didn’t hide them very well” Dan says, looking pained. “It’s a Degas and a Matisse. They both came today, about two hours apart.”

“They’re from Felix.”

“They all are. He used to send deliveries here, when -”

Phil repeats “deliveries.”

“Things he’d rescued. He used to send them here for storage, while he was waiting for collectors. But, I don’t know why, now. I think something’s happened. I might have to go and see him.”

~*~

Dan turning his head to try and get his hair to blow the same way, catching Phil’s eye, because it’s impossible for them not to be looking at each other. Dimple filled smile, hair fluttering, all the glittering zippers on his stupid coat, waving in Phil’s direction, like they’re on two passing ships, like Phil somehow won’t see him.

Everytime Phil sees him it’s a supernova in his heart (is that cheesey? He said it once, when drunk, _Dan, you’re a supernova in my heart_ , and Dan had laughed so hard that he’d fallen out of bed.)

~*~

Phil repeats “It might be something I can help with.”

“I _think_ it’s something where you’re going to stay here, where it’s safe, and not have any involvement whatsoever.”

Phil says, horrified, “where it’s _safe_?”

Dan winces. “That was a poor choice of words.”

“Whatever it is, I’m helping” the Monet is still in the hall. Phil glances at it, a masterpiece worth who knows how much propped up against their radiator. A ticking time bomb finally gone off. _You thought you could keep him with you, you thought that you could keep him safe, well done Phil_. 

Dan watches him look at the painting and says “Phil -” as the start to a pretty intense sounding sentence.

Phil says “tell me what was in the letter.”

And Dan does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [The theme tune to Attack on Titan, piano style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB8_wfxWSGs/) because why the heck not :)
> 
> \- (I had not intended to write a sequel but, as per my last notes, I really wanted to write more in this 'verse so here it is - released from my gdocs!)


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that he did, when they finally let him out, was sit on the bench outside the police station and phone Martyn - who had said _Phil, Phil, slow down you’re not making any sense._

Phil said “he stole it.”

“Stole what? Who are you talking about?”

“He _stole_ it.”

Martyn, desperately, had said “the Van Gogh? Are you talking about the Van Gogh? Where are you?”

Phil repeated “he stole it.”

“ _Who_ stole it?” Phil could hear the jangle of Martyn’s keys, the slamming of a door. “Phil, where are you?”

“Police station” Phil, hit with a sudden urge to absolutely not see Martyn, said “don’t come here.”

“Why? Is someone with you?”

Phil, even though he’d spent the last two hours lying to police officers, found that he couldn’t lie to his brother, said “no, I’m on my own” and abruptly hung up.

~*~

_it’s not a job. I mean, it’s not NOT a job but it’s not a JOB. It’s like a reverse job. Doing it backwards. You understand what I mean._

Felix’s handwriting is so elaborate that it’s almost calligraphy, beautiful to look at but almost impossible to read. Phil says “what’s a reverse job?”

“What’s the reverse of stealing paintings,” Dan says. “I guess.”

“What, giving them back?”

Dan doesn’t say anything.

Phil repeats “giving them back?”

The last part of the note is Felix’s phone number, presumably, with _please call me_ scrawled afterwards. Dan taps his finger on the _me_ and says “I should phone him. It doesn’t sound right.”

“You never knew what happened to the paintings” Phil says, slowly. “You said that, at my flat. You said you didn’t question it.”

Dan says “I didn’t. I never did.”

“So, where are they? Where do they _go_? Does he just store them somewhere?”

“He must do.”

“Otherwise how could he give you back The Sea at Saintes Maries?”

Dan looks at him, suddenly, up from the note. “I never told you that he gave it back. I could have just had it, the whole time.”

Phil feels slightly sick and has no idea why. He has to take a few seconds before he says “did you?”, even though he doesn’t really want Dan to answer.

“No, I didn’t. He sent it here, just after I came back.” 

“Which means that he was holding onto it. Somewhere.”

Dan is still looking at him. “If I’d had it I would have brought it back earlier. To Manchester. I would have broken back in, I -”

“What about the three?” Phil gestures to the Monet, the Degas. The Matisse. “What do they signify?”

“The Monet was the first” Dan says. “The Degas is for the flowers, I guess. The Matisse is a piano. But they’re all previous jobs of mine. The Matisse was my first one. And I tore a Degas once, with Louise, only because I wasn’t concentrating. It was after….” 

“Manchester” Phil supplies. They both take a pause. “But they’re paintings you stole before?”

“The _artists_ are ones I’ve stolen before. The paintings are new.”

“ _Someone_ must have stolen them. You could find out."

Dan says “Phil. You get what this note means, right?”

“No I don’t. I don’t get what any of it means.”

~*~

Phil’s first day back at work, following the Van Gogh theft, was pretty miserable, in so many ways. He has mostly repressed the memories, which he’s scarily good at, deliberately deciding to not think about something anymore.

About being interviewed by the police and realising what a good liar he is. About getting back to his flat and pulling all his photo frames off the walls, not even catching them, just letting them hit the floor and break the glass, cracked spiderwebs traced all over photos of him and - who, exactly. Someone who now had a completely different name (not a different name. Their own name. Their actual name.)

The cracks in the glass like the cracks in his voice when he had to tell everyone, _everyone_ , that Dylan had gone, faking like it was a good thing, like he’d emigrated to an amazing job, and they had all frowned at how the happy news didn’t exactly match up with his tone. They didn’t need to know that he spent most evenings, every evening, in his living room window, looking down into the street, as if Dan would just be loitering around outside.

He used to have a recurring nightmare that Dan would come back in the five seconds where he wasn’t looking, when he wasn’t in the flat. He’d time all of his supermarket trips, throw the door wide open when he got back in anticipation of Dan springing out from wherever he was hiding and saying _here I am, you found me at last_.

~*~

Felix, when he comes back, is in tangerine and lilac - a combination that Phil isn’t sure works. He blinks in surprise when they open the door together, but hides his shock just as quickly. Phil is starting to think that Felix’s genuine emotions are few and far between.

He’s carrying another parcel, which Phil deliberately doesn’t look at. 

Felix says “huh.”

“We don’t have secrets” Dan says. “You can explain to both of us.”

“Well, that’s adorable” Felix shrugs, sits on the bench of the Ophelia piano, props the parcel neatly beside him. “This is a nice piece. I should have got one while that exhibit was still on. Or kept that Steinway.”

Phil waits for Dan to speak but Dan is staring at Felix (who is now staring at their photos). To fill the silence Phil says “so, we read your letter” instead of _what Steinway?_ , which is what he actually wants to say.

“I imagine that you did” Felix agrees. “Sorry it’s a bit vague, I didn’t want to do a whole essay. Oh hey, you went to Tokyo, I love it there.”

Phil waits again for Dan to say something. Dan does not. Phil says “so, a reverse job means -” (instead of _stop looking at our photos stop sitting at the piano stop just being in our flat_.)

“Means exactly what you think. Un-rescuing things.”

“Un-stealing?”

Felix ignores him. “Returning things. I’ve been thinking, about stuff, and I thought that it would be best to -”

“That’s not true” Dan interjects, finally. “This isn’t something you’ve just decided. Look at you, look at the bags under your eyes, look at -”

“Great deductions Sherlock,” says Felix, drily. But he sighs and says “you’re right though. It’s not on my terms. We’ve been compromised. Or almost compromised.”

“How can you be _almost_ compromised?”

Felix says “it’s a long story. Basically, we had a new recruit, to replace you, and I didn’t exactly, uh, look into their background that thoroughly, and -”

“You never looked into my background.” 

Felix gives Dan a long look and says “didn’t I?” before continuing “he was a mole. He’s the son of the owner of that gallery in Edinburgh, you remember the one Dan, the one with the Pollock. You nearly fell through that skylight. Anyway, he wanted to catch us out, find out enough to go to the police.”

“And did he?”

Felix sighs “yes. Plus I teamed him with Alfie, and you know Alfie can’t keep his mouth shut.” He and Dan share a conspiratorial glance. 

Phil says “and has he? Gone to the police?”

“Not yet. He’s kind of blackmailing me,” Felix waves a casual hand through the air. “I mean, no big deal, I can cope with it, but it’s only a matter of time before he gets bored of me not cooperating.”

“So?”

“So, Marzia and I have been talking for a while. All our money’s secure, hidden away, paid for most of the houses in cash, the others we bought outright. Think we could retire to the Stockholm house, keep the one in -”

Dan repeats “ _so_?”

“Oh, yeah, you guys. The only thing that could catch me out, catch us ALL out, is the paintings. Obviously. So we need to dispose of them.”

Phil says “dispose?”

“They can’t catch us if there’s nothing to find, right?” Felix does a chirpy little shrug. “It’s the ultimate clean slate.”

Phil repeats “dispose?” but no one is listening to him. The words float harmlessly into the air. Dan has his sleeves right over his hands, pulled to his fingertips. He isn’t looking at Phil, which is disconcerting. He’s _always_ looking at Phil. 

Dan says “what does this mean exactly? For me?”

Felix, suddenly serious, such an abrupt change of tone that Phil jumps, says “it’s bad Dan. You’re all over it, all of you. Your names, photos. We have to get rid of it all. Every last one.”

Dan takes a shaky breath. “Look, I’m not -”

“Not really bothered, I know. You used to make me so mad, before. You just didn’t care, always behind on your timings, completely half-assed. I can’t believe you never got caught.”

Dan looks at Phil. Phil looks at Dan, puts as much feeling as he can into it. He’s not wearing a shirt but he pulls at the round collar of his sweater instead. Dan smiles at him, weakly.

Felix, watching them, says “oh, apart from that one time. I guess.”

“I meant, I’m not involved anymore. I have a life now. You said you’d never contact me again, you said -”

“You think I expected this to happen?”

“It’s great that _your_ money’s secure Felix, that’s amazing. I’m _so_ glad that you’re okay, that’s _always_ the main thing.”

Phil says “I don’t understand”, a plaintive note to his voice, like he’s the one kid in class who didn’t pass the test. “I don’t get it."

Felix, who had drawn a deep breath to conjure up a reply to Dan, gives him a long look. “I have to get rid of everything. Every last piece. In two months. Or he gets the authorities involved.” He does little air quotes around ‘authorities’.

“How much is everything?”

“It’s…….. a lot.”

Dan says “and what? You want to just waltz into every place we stole from and hang them back up?”

“We don’t _steal_ Dan, we -”

“I think it’s the actual definition of stealing, actually,” says Phil. 

Felix, childishly, says “you gave me the idea Daniel. With your little Van Gogh stunt.”

~*~

“Hey, do you know who the new cleaner is?”

The Manchester gift shop was tiny, like a cloakroom, barely enough room for one display case. It only had one employee, Hannah; who was tall and blonde and scared Phil a bit, in the way that all incredibly beautiful people intimidate him, a little (even Dan. Sometimes.)

Hannah, who had nothing to do in her miniature shop except people watch all day, said “oh, the pretty one? With the -” she pushed her fingers into her cheeks, exactly on her own dimples. “Looks full of angst all the time?”

Phil said “um, yes?”

“He doesn’t really speak to anyone” she shrugged. “Or do much cleaning actually. He’s around your painting a lot.”

Phil felt the little spark of pride that he always did when someone called the Van Gogh _your painting_ and said “okay. I was just -”

“Interested?” 

“What, in him?” Phil laughed an attempt at a ha!that’s ridiculous! laugh and ended up coughing instead. “He’s way too good looking for me.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Hannah agreed.

~*~

Phil says “I don’t think you’re being entirely honest.”

Felix laughs. “I’m never entirely honest.”

“What’s he blackmailing you _for_? Just give him the money or whatever.”

“I can’t give him what he’s asking for” Felix replies, tone utterly blank. “He’s making it personal. I hate when things get personal.”

Dan throws his arm out, points at Phil, “Felix, _you’re_ making it personal.”

“And I feel _bad_ about that. He was supposed to tell you I was regretful,” Felix fixes his eyes on Dan. “Dan, you have to help me. I need to get rid of the paintings. All of them. Then it’s all over. Every single bit of it.”

Dan hesitates. Felix sees it. Phil sees it as if in slow motion, the pause seeming to last hours, long enough for him to stretch over it and say _no Dan stay here_.

Dan takes a breath, closes his eyes, and says “how exactly are you planning to do this?”

Phil goes to the balcony and closes the door on the whole conversation, on the resignation in Dan’s eyes. He feels like he’s still reaching over the hesitation, the silence in between Felix speaking and Dan saying “how?”. Like Dan has stepped backwards, out of his grasp.

~*~

There’s a gentle tap, tap on the balcony doors, about fifteen minutes later. A pretty timid way to announce an entrance. Dan tap, taps twice more and then throws the doors open, steps onto the balcony.

It’s too cold to be out there, and Phil didn’t bring a coat. Dan’s carrying the scratchy knit blanket they keep on the back of the sofa (Phil doesn’t know why, they both hate it. It just seemed like a thing you should do, keep a blanket on the sofa. Domestic). Phil stays staring at the frozen petals of the begonias.

Dan says “aren’t you cold?”

“Is he gone?”

Dan holds the blanket out to Phil. “He’s gone.”

“Okay” Phil doesn’t take the blanket. “Is he coming back?”

“Probably not” Dan stays arms outstretched, pleading. “Are we going to talk about it?” 

Phil shrugs. “I don’t -”

“He’s given me a list, of nine. To return. I don’t know whose jobs they were in the first place, I -”

Phil takes the blanket. “I am pretty cold, actually.”

He throws it over his shoulders, like a cloak, holding the corners. When he hugs Dan the blanket wraps around them both, when he kisses Dan he sighs, right against his mouth. 

(Dan smells like their shampoo, tastes like the bolognese they’d eaten right before Felix showed up, he’s wearing one of Phil’s hoodies. Every single part of him says Phil, in the same way that every part of Phil says Dan. Phil wishes the blanket was made of bricks, so he could build a barricade, an entire fortress, around the two of them, so that -)

“It wouldn’t exactly be a very comfy blanket then Phil,” Dan says, lightly, against Phil’s cheek.

“It’s not a comfy blanket _now_. Who even bought us this?”

“I see your distraction tactics. They’re not working. Finish the sentence.”

Phil says “so that I could keep you safe. That’s all.”

~*~

There’s a new guy in his editing seminar, who everyone eyes with suspicion because, really, who joins a seminar when you’re fourteen sessions in? He has a green quiff of hair, bright blue eyes, and sits as far to the back of the class as possible.

The tutor says “are you new?”

“No, I’ve been here the whole time.”

“But, I haven’t seen -”

He says, again, slower, like he’s trying to hypnotise everyone, “no, I’ve been here the whole time” and then proceeds to play Pokemon Go throughout the entire discussion (he yells at every Pokemon he tries to catch. Phil hasn’t heard anyone so loud since Mark, who can fill a room even from a Skype screen). 

When they leave he falls into step beside Phil and says “Phil, right?”

Phil thinks _don’t say yes_ and says “yes” (flash of Dan’s voice saying oh come _on_ Phil). “I mean, no. Maybe?”

Green Quiff looks somewhere between amused and confused. “I need to talk to you.”

Phil sighs, deeply, an impressive Shakespearean sigh, and says “I think I’m the wrong person for you to be talking to.”

“Are you?” he holds his hand out. “I’m Jack. That’s not actually my name though."

“Of course it’s not. Why would it be?”

Jack says “wow, you seem stressed.”

“It’s been a stressful week,” Phil replies. Somehow they’ve arrived outside, he double-knots his scarf and pulls his coat collar up. Jack, wearing several layers of different coloured hoodies, produces a knitted hat from his pocket and puts it on, it doesn’t cover his hair very successfully. Phil says “am I supposed to know who you are?”

“Probably not. I don’t really work with teams.” 

Phil waits.

Jack waits.

Phil says “so…………”

“I know what’s happening. Or you know, the situation that’s arisen.” 

“So you’re one of Felix’s?” 

“One of Felix’s what?”

“I don’t know - employees?” Phil slips on the ice, predictably.

Jack grabs his arm and says “Look, I don’t really do this sort of thing. I work alone, like I said. But - everyone’s talking about it. And I wanted to help you, I suppose.”

“Help _me_? I’m not really involved.”

Jack sighs and says “but you are Phil. You really are. I need you to meet me somewhere, we need to discuss something. I’ll text you.”

Phil says “you can’t text me, you don’t have my number.”

Jack looks like he wants to roll his eyes but just about controls himself.

“Right, you probably already do. Did you really need to come to a seminar to tell me this?”

“Not really, but I had a free hour, so thought I’d live out my further education dreams,” Jack smiles at him (a toothy grin that makes him look extremely young). 

“The thing that you need to discuss with me…...”

“......will be revealed when we meet. Don’t spoil the suspense.”

“You can’t just tell me now?”

Jack says “nah. This is where he meets you, isn’t it? I just wanted to introduce myself.”

Phil looks down at the pavement, to better place his steps, and says “he meets me outside the building. We’ve walked too far.”

When he looks up Jack isn’t there anymore. He slips again, in the act of wildly looking left and right, falls and lands right on his knee, tears his jeans. 

It’s only later that he realises that he fell because he leaned too far to the right, where Dan usually is. Fell straight into the gap where Dan usually catches his arm, says _Phil you’re a walking disaster_.

“You fell?” Dan says, noticing his jeans. “You weren’t playing Pokemon again, were you? Not after the lamppost.” 

Phil says “see what happens when you’re not around?” and means for it to be light, jokey. But it isn’t. It really isn’t.

~*~

The cute cleaner really was around The Sea at Saintes Maries a lot. Looking back it’s all so obvious, like he would be yelling at the screen of a tv drama, saying _it’s the cleaner! The cleaner wants to steal the painting!_ He mostly appeared when Phil was on lunch, and he’d vanish as soon as Phil returned - Phil would see a glimpse of him disappearing around a corner, ducking out of view, like he'd never been there in the first place.

Chris had said “oh my god just talk to him please, I can’t take much more of this,” and so Phil had taken lunch earlier than usual and been standing by the painting when Dan returned, with his little mop and bucket.

Phil said “you really like this painting. Or this one patch of floor you keep cleaning” and Dan had smiled at him. A reluctant sort of smile at first, slowly creeping across his face, before it suddenly lit up, crinkling around his eyes. The sun appearing from behind the shade. 

Phil said “you’re new right, I saw you, the other day”, neglecting to mention that he’d seen him every day since.

Dan said “yeah, I’m Dylan.”

~*~

He gets a text that says _Southbank. Saturday. By the Eye, 2._

Closely followed by _I’ll be the one with the green hair_ and several fist bump emojis.

~*~

Phil had let Dan (or Dylan, whoever) out of the basement because he loved him. Even after the whole reveal, if the situation had arisen again Phil would have done the exact same thing, every time. A whole loop, a never ending record, of Phil letting Dan out of the basement. Dan saying _you don’t understand_.

Phil thought about that a lot, later. What exactly he didn’t understand.

The police didn’t really believe him. The other security guards didn’t really believe him. No one did. A lot of raised eyebrows, repeated questions. So he just happened to be getting out of the room as soon as you arrived? So you dropped your radio? So why were you stood so close to the door when backup arrived? Questions to make them doubt him but without enough bite to actually charge him with anything.

(no one remembered Dan. He never spoke to anyone, never interacted with anyone. He hadn’t even worked his notice period. But then that, apparently, is what made Dan so good at his job)

The gallery owner, a kind faced man who had always been nice to Phil, looked over his little half moon glasses and said “it’s probably for the best that I send you to London now, Phillip. I’m not sure if it makes sense for you to stay here”

Phil had agreed. It had been three weeks - three weeks of having to watch everyone slow down and stare at the blank space of wall where The Sea at Saintes Maries had been. The look of sadness on all their faces.

They’d had a welcoming party for the painting, when it first got gifted to the gallery (which Phil has never told Dan about). Phil had thought that it sounded ridiculous but everyone had been so happy, so proud, to have an actual real _masterpiece_ in their tiny little gallery. They’d all gasped in unison when it got hung on the wall, the blue catching the sun from the windows to the right, and Phil had never seen anything so beautiful.

When he was put in charge of its security he said “I won’t let you down” and did a very awkward salute that everyone politely ignored. He felt proud to stand by it every day. 

Martyn said _try not to get it stolen_ and Phil said _ha, very funny_.

The owner had thanked him (actually thanked him) for his hard work and Phil had just about made it back to the car before he cried (sad fat tears that bounced off the steering wheel of his mother’s Micra), not for himself but for the nice, kind faced, man who now had to spend every day looking at that empty stretch of wall.

~*~

The painting Felix brought with him is a Van Gogh, of course. Phil had been expecting one. Branches against a blue background, pink flowers dotted across the vines. When they get home he finds Dan has propped it on the mantlepiece and they both stand in front of it, like they’re in an art gallery, rather than their own living room.

Phil says “cherry blossoms?”

Dan says “it’s Almond Blossoms. He painted it as a gift for his brother.” He gives Phil a cautious look. “Did you want to ask me anything about earlier?”

“It’s a beautiful painting.” 

Dan makes an odd little noise, almost the start of a cough.

Phil says “Dan?” 

“I knew you’d like it. I used to dream about stealing it for you. I didn't know anyone had actually stolen it”

Phil says “oh. You could just get me a reproduction instead.”

Dan laughs but it’s wet sounding, like it’s being formed around a sob. Phil side steps towards him until their shoulders bump, grabs his hand. Dan, on an exhale, says “I’ve been thinking about -”

“We had a welcome party for the Van Gogh at the Manchester gallery. Moira from the front desk made a cake and everything. We hung a welcome banner, for a painting. How ridiculous is that?”

Dan tightens his fingers around Phil’s. “Not very. I think it’s a nice thing to do.”

“They had a party when it came back too. Remember?”

“Of course I remember, I went there with you.”

“Not as much cake though.”

Dan turns to face him. “Phil, what are you saying exactly?”

“I don’t know. I’m rambling, I guess.”

“It’s on the list. It’s one of the nine.”

Phil doesn’t react, holds himself completely still. Almost holds his breath. Dan keeps looking at him, keeps waiting, but Phil can’t say anything, can’t make any of the thoughts in his head form actual words. 

He squeezes Dan’s hand, once, and hopes that somehow says enough. Says something.

~*~

Dan finishes with Attack on Titan, as per every Friday. Phil stands beside him, stooped right down so he can reach the keys, and sings along (if saying Mikasa to the tune counts as singing. He’s not great with lyrics).

“Hey, you’re improving!” Dan says, too close to the microphone. Dan never uses the microphone unless it’s to talk about Phil, he mostly gives it distrustful looks while he’s playing, like it's getting in his way.

Someone at one of the nearest tables replies “is he?”

He isn’t. Phil lacks the co-ordination for the piano. You’d think that months of playing the same melody most Fridays would help somewhat but not exactly. He slams his hand down, the reverb echoing through the entire bar, and turns to Dan, does jazz hands.

“Wow” says Dan and, as Phil returns to the bar, “my boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen. That was actually not as bad as it usually is.”

Phil says “hey!” just as Dan is taking his, very awkward, bow. He repeats it when Dan reaches him “hey! I’ve been practising and everything."

Dan touches his fingers to Phil’s jaw and says “you seem in a better mood. Not that you were in a _bad_ mood, but just, I was worried. Because you were worried.”

“It’s been a bit of a weird week.”

“That’s an understatement” Dan looks at him, up through his eyelashes. “But we’re okay.”

“We’re always okay” Phil kisses him and pretends, for a second, that they really are just a couple who met in a bar, this bar, that they don’t have four (four) priceless pieces of artwork in their flat, that Dan hasn’t been almost compromised. He cradles Dan’s face in his hands, taps out a melody with his fingers into Dan’s hair.

~*~

Dan had said “I don’t want to never speak to you again” just after soaking Phil to the waist with a mistimed puddle jump. “I didn’t mean to say it aloud. Happens sometimes.”

Phil said “you’re a very odd person” when he actually meant a whole symphony of other things. They were outside and it was raining and Dan kept standing still, staring up to the sky, letting the raindrops scatter over his face.

He wasn’t called Dan then, of course. Which makes remembering these things confusing.

~*~

On the way back to the flat Phil grabs at Dan’s hand. Dan instantly clutches at him, probably assuming, not unreasonably, that Phil is close to falling over. But he isn’t. He stands his ground, pulls Dan to a stop.

Dan says “what -”

“Don’t do it.”

“Phil."

“It’s pointless me saying this though, isn’t it? Because you’re going to anyway.”

“It’s not as easy as that Phil. It’s Felix. It’s PJ. It’s Mark. It’s Louise. If I don’t help then anything could happen. To any of them. It’s on all of us.”

“Dan are you even happy with me?” Phil can’t believe he picked the street to have this conversation. At one in the morning. In January. His breath fluffs tiny clouds in front of his face. “Why are you so desperate to get involved? Is this not enough for you?”

Dan says “you’re too much for me” and then “what the fuck kind of question is that?”

“An understandable one? Do I _bore_ you?”

Dan takes a deep breath. “I know this week has been hard, but I think it was harder because we never talk about it.”

“I don’t _want_ to talk about it.”

“Phil, what Felix said, the other day, about me not being bothered. That was true. I can’t believe I didn’t end up in prison like a billion times. I have no idea how I didn’t get caught. But I couldn’t be bothered because I had nothing to lose, nothing that I really wanted to fight for, so I -”

“Oh please, tell me more about how much you should have got arrested Dan, this is making me feel so much better.”

“It was because I had nothing that I really wanted to fight for. If this whole thing had happened two years ago I would have sat back and just let -”

“Again, not making me feel better.”

Dan says “I have something to fight for now. You understand that, right? _Nothing_ is going to take me away from you. How can you even ask me if this is enough for me, this is  everything to me. _You’re_ everything to me. I can’t believe you would even ask if I’m happy with you, you don’t understand -”

“What don’t I understand? Why are you always telling me that I don’t understand?” Phil can’t feel his hands anymore. Or his face, for that matter. There’s a group of girls on one of the balconies above, pretending not to eavesdrop. He really should have started this conversation in the flat.

“Phil, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it because I love you.”

Phil, weakly, says “don’t make this about me,” and tries his best to storm off. It fails, mostly for all the slipping around on the icy pavement, but he manages to stay on his feet at least. 

Dan, with his exceptional balance, is instantly in front of him. “I love you. I love everything about being with you, literally everything. I want to keep it, how can you be angry that I want to keep it?”

“You can’t put this on me, that’s not fair.”

They make it to the flat and don’t say a word to each other all the way up the stairs (which isn’t normal, it’s usually thirty steps of constant teasing about how unfit they both are. Phil can hear Dan wheezing a little, under his breath).

When they get into the hall Phil says “I’m going to bed.”

Dan instantly replies “that’s a great idea, we can talk in the morning, we’re both tired, I -” he watches Phil turn right, towards the guest bedroom. “Phil, please.”

Phil can’t go through with it, of course he can’t. He turns and Dan is already there, wrapping him into the snow damp grey of his coat. Phil buries his face into Dan’s scarf, unable to get to actual Dan underneath all the layers, and sighs.

Dan says “I’m sorry Phil.”

“I love you too” Phil says. “I didn’t say that, just now. Maybe I don’t say it enough, but -”

“You say it literally all the time,” Dan is trying, somehow, to release himself from his coat while also not taking his arms from Phil’s waist. “I can’t believe that you asked if you bore me”

“It was a legitimate question” Phil attempts to kiss Dan’s shoulder, through the scarf. It doesn’t work. Dan sighs like he felt it anyway. “You’re going to do it. No matter what I say.”

“Don’t put it like that.”

“It’s true though.”

“Phil, you heard what Felix said. I’ll get caught, we all will. You want me to sit and wait for that? Or do you want me to try?” Dan finally gets his coat unbuttoned. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Phil gets his hands under Dan’s coat, onto his shirt, pulls him as close as he possibly can, presses their foreheads together. When Dan says “Phil” his breath flutters across Phil’s mouth. He’s probably holding on a fraction too tight.

~*~

In bed Phil pulls the blankets right over them, like a cocoon, drapes himself over Dan’s side.

Dan blinks at the duvet sky and says “Phil."

Phil says “Dan” (mouths it right on the base of Dan’s throat.)

“I never want to be anywhere you’re not. You remember that, right?”

“I remember” Phil tries to recall what he’d said next, when Dan said that the first time, but can’t quite retrieve it from his memory. He finally gets it, says “I’m happiest when I’m with you.” 

It sounds like the wrong order but Dan smiles at him anyway. His best smile, the one that flashes just his left dimple. 

(He spent most of last month (seems like an eternity ago) learning songs from Hamilton, for the amount of requests he was getting at the bar, and Phil constantly used to sing “when you smile, you knock me out, I fall apart”, just to make him laugh. To smile that one particular smile.)

Phil doesn’t feel much like singing now. He touches a fingertip to Dan’s dimple and says “go to sleep.”

Dan says “only if you do first”, so Phil does.

~*~

Jack looks stunned and a little like he regrets this entire meeting. “This isn’t really a relationship therapy session Phil.”

“Then what is it?”

They’re the other side of the river from the Tate, sat outside a patisserie. Jack only had a black coffee. Phil is halfway through a tower of pancakes. 

Jack says “it’s bad, okay? You need to stop burying your head in the sand. The web’s closing in, and all the jazz.” 

“You knew Dan” Phil says. “From before. I mean, when he was still doing all this stuff.”

“ _You_ knew him when he was still doing this stuff” Jack points out. “And, I did. We didn’t work together much but I knew him. He had a pretty good success rate.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yeah, it’s all go, all the time,” Jack glances at him. “I know I just said it but I’m not here to give you relationship advice.” He sounds sorry about it, at least. 

“So what are we here for?”

Jack drains his coffee. “Firstly, I think it’s for the best that Dan doesn’t know about this.”

Phil says “okay.” 

“I said I wanted to help you.”

“I want you to help _Dan_. I can’t let anything happen to him.”

It’s true. He doesn’t care about anyone else - he likes Louise, he likes Mark, he likes PJ, but he’d hand every single one of them over to the MET if it would help Dan. If it would keep Dan with him.

Jack raises an eyebrow like Phil said that aloud. “Okay. I mean, that’s my main thing too. I feel a bit guilty really.”

“Why?”

“The paintings. They’re mine. My jobs.”

“The nine?” Phil asks. “The list?”

Jack nods. “They’re difficult ones, Phil, I can’t lie. And I can’t help him because it was my job in the first place, I can’t go back to the scene. That’s the stupidest thing ever.”

Phil thinks of Dan, drinking ten glasses of champagne to help with the stress of being back in Manchester. “I suppose so.”

“And I can’t help him. I’ve got my own list. One of them’s a fucking Cleve Gray, they stole that one on a _boat_ , how the fuck do I -” Jack stops himself, just as he’s getting so loud that people the other side of the river are staring at them. “But _you_. You could. You’re a complete non entity.”

“Wow” Phil says. “Thanks so much.”

“I mean that you’re completely innocent. No one would ever be looking out for you.”

“Are you trying to recruit me?” Phil puts his fork down, the pancakes are suddenly tasteless. “Because I -”

Jack’s phone chirps and he instantly stands up. “Dan’s stupid if he’s not going to let you help him. Because you can. We need to meet again.”

Phil shakes his head. “We’re meeting _now_.”

“I have ideas” Jack says. “And I also have to leave.”

“Of course you do.”

Jack leans down, right into Phil’s personal space, steals a pancake. “You could help without Dan ever knowing. Think about it.”

When he leaves Phil feeds the rest of his pancakes to the pigeons (or one, pretty agressive, pigeon in particular) and thinks. Nine paintings. Nine returns. Nine things that could go wrong. Nine jobs that could fail. Nine ways that Dan could leave.

~*~

Phil is on the balcony, tending to the little garden. Or patch of begonias, given that nothing else will grow there. Everything is frozen, he chips away at their leaves, the dried up petals.

Dan, from the doorway, says “hi” softly.

Phil echoes “hi” back, in exactly the same tone. 

“I know that you always say we don’t fight but I think last night we probably did.”

Phil nods.

“And I know why you don’t want me to get involved in this whole thing. I know it’s dangerous, I know that it’s -”

Phil says “that’s not why” and, off Dan’s startled look, “that’s part of why, the danger part, but it’s not really _why_ ”. He continues clipping at the begonias.

Dan waits for a few beats and says “you’re not going to tell me?”

Phil, making sure he’s looking right at one of the red begonias and absolutely nowhere near Dan, says “I don’t want you to get involved in case you don’t come back.”

Dan, sounding confused, says “in case I get caught you mean? Because I -”

“No. I mean, in case _you don’t come back_.”

There’s a long pause, a tug on his shoulder. Dan, voice sounding uneven, says “Phil, will you look at me and not the flowers. Please.”

Phil doesn’t. Dan tugs at his sweater again, leaves his hand between Phil’s shoulder blades. Phil keeps on clipping at the begonias, probably clips half of their petals away.

~*~

Jack texts.

_Impression, Sunrise. Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers. The Piano Lesson. Almond Blossoms. Lavender Mist. New York Movie. Lady Agnew. Boreas. Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino_

_That’s the 9._

He follows that with the little emoji wearing sunglasses, which Phil isn’t entirely sure is appropriate. 

Phil replies _tell me when we can meet. I’ll do it._

~*~

He wonders what he did, in Dan’s dream. The dream where Dan stole Almond Blossoms and presented it to him. What did he say? What was his reaction? What would Dan have wanted his reaction to be?

He dreams, that night, of about thirty Dans, a procession of them, each producing The Sea at Saintes Maries, one after the other, each saying _I got this for you_. Dream Phil keeps saying _no, that’s not what I wanted_ even though it’s more beautiful in the dream, more shades of blue. More light. The Dans are all different, one is riding Llama in Meadow, one is wearing Phil’s blue shirt, one is Dylan, in his cleaning uniform.

The final Dan, the thirtieth one, is dressed like he’s stepped out of Phil’s favourite photo of them in Japan, carrying an umbrella because it’s suddenly started raining cherry blossoms. He doesn’t have a painting. He says _I got this for you_ , holds his arms out like he’s displaying a picture frame but is really just revealing his heart. 

And Phil says _there, that’s what I wanted_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- as with the first one, this is turning out to be a bit slower than I expected!


	3. 1. impression, sunrise - claude monet

The first time that he and Dan (who was going by Dylan then. But still was Dan) really sat and spoke to each other was in the Starbucks nearest to the Manchester gallery. Phil had found him outside in the rain and, somehow, had convinced him to come for a coffee. He’d ensured that they sat right in the corner, against the window, still feeling like Dan was a bit of a flight risk. 

He texted Chris, in the queue, something along the lines of _he’s here we’re in starbucks what do i do what should i say_ and Chris had replied _who? The cleaner?_ with a thumbs up. 

He spilt half of his caramel macchiato over himself as he approached their table and Dan had given him a fond look, like they’d known each other for ages, like he knew exactly what Phil was like and loved every aspect of it. 

(the look was there for maybe five seconds before it disappeared. Phil considered pouring the rest of the coffee over his head, just to get it to come back)

He said “sorry, I’m ridiculously clumsy. You probably haven’t noticed yet.”

Dan said “I’ve noticed” and instantly flushed and looked away. 

Phil wanted to ask _how?_ to try and get some kind of confirmation that he wasn’t the only one spending his working day pining, or trying to memorise someone’s rota, but Dan had blushed so much that he said “oh, and I thought that I hid it so well.”

Dan blinked at Phil’s coffee stained sleeve.

“Or not,” Phil sat, cautiously, in the seat opposite, movements slow and practiced, as though Dan would startle and run off at any moment. 

Dan, stirring his coffee, looked up at Phil through his fringe. It looked like it was meant to be a secret glance but somehow he’d got stuck halfway. When Phil met his eyes he smiled. 

Phil smiled back, while thinking please don’t be that couple who sit on the corner table and smile at each other the whole time. Or, actually, let’s be that, let’s be that _forever_.

The window was steamed up with condensation, probably because of the rain, and Phil had stood at the counter watching Dan trace a sad face into it. 

Phil said “hey, draw something happy at least” and leaned over to draw a smiling face next to it. “That’s better.”

Dan said “wow, it’s us” and flicked another glance Phil’s way (he did that a lot, in the beginning. Looked at Phil under his fringe, when he was sure that Phil was focused on something else. They were long, searching glances, as though once he’d started looking he found that he couldn’t look away.)

Phil added their, identical, fringes to the faces with two dashes to the side of the sad mouth. “Now it is.”

“What’re those meant to be?”

“They’re your dimples.”

Dan graced him with a smile that effectively showed off said dimples. “They don’t show up when I’m sad though.”

Phil said “I know they don’t” because Dan looked sad every time he came near Phil and the painting. Phil had been waiting for a glimpse of that smile for days. Off Dan’s startled look he added “when you’re cleaning by the Van Gogh, I mean. You weren’t lying when you said that painting gives you an existential crisis.”

Dan looked saddened by even the mention of the Van Gogh, the dimples and the smile instantly disappeared. “Lots of things do that. Like I said before.”

“That’s okay. I’m good at helping with existential crises. I think.”

Dan paused, coffee cup halfway to his mouth, and said “yeah. I feel like you would be."

Phil felt a tiny burst of pride, a miniscule parade in his heart, and said “I could be. I mean, if that was…… I could be.”

Dan, looking at Phil like he _knew_ him, perched on the end of his seat like he was anticipating a quick exit, said “if that was -”

“What you wanted?”

Dan said “I don’t think I’m very good at getting what I want” and drained his coffee. 

“That’s a weirdly depressing thing to say.”

Dan finally pushed himself up and out of his chair. “I should go. Thanks for the coffee” said while staring at Phil like he wanted to stay.

Phil had already finished what was left of his unspilled coffee and stood up too. “I’ll walk with you.”

It was still raining, neither of them were wearing coats. Dan jumped in a puddle and said “I don’t want to not speak to you again.”

Phil, brushing raindrops from his fringe, said “that’s a weird thing to say.” 

“I didn’t mean to say it outloud. Happens sometimes” Dan jumped in another puddle, rain flying off his hair like tiny starbursts. 

“You’re a very odd person.”

“So are you.”

Phil, heart finally bursting from his chest and onto his sleeve, said “I like it though” even though he more than liked it, even then. 

Dan blinked raindrops from his eyelashes and said “so do I.” He jumped in another puddle and, finally, like he’d been threatening to do all evening, added, “I’ve got to go. It was nice, to see you.”

Phil joked “away from the painting?”

Dan (who, of course, was a month into attempting to steal that very painting, not that Phil knew that at the time) gave him a sad look and said “yeah. Away from the painting.”

He’d missed three texts from Chris, all variations on _how’s it going what’s he like you haven’t spilled anything over yourself have you?_ and replied to say the only thing that he could really, which was _chris i think i love him a little bit._

Because that had been the first time. Twenty minutes in total, probably. Twenty minutes in Dan’s company and he loved him. A little bit.

~*~

He can follow a list, he’s good with them; he taps the whole thing into the notes section of his phone, in the same order of priority that Jack sent it.

He goes to meet Dan from the Guildhall, waits patiently while Dan (down on bended knee) tries to explain to a nine-year-old girl that Rachmaninoff maybe isn’t the best choice for a parents’ day recital.

When he sees Phil he instantly bounces to his feet, face lighting up. He says “Phil!” at the same time as the (tiny ginger) student shoots Phil a look of utter envy for getting Dan’s full attention (Phil can relate). Dan suddenly seems to remember that she’s there and pats her head, says something like “we’ll try something less….intense, Leila. Does that sound okay?”

The girl, gloomily, says “okay” and drifts off.

Dan says “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been thinking about you.” He pulls at the sleeves of his coat, another expensive black number with far too many zips and pockets. “I mean, more than usual.”

Phil, having practiced what he wanted to say on the entire tube ride over, forgets everything and just says “how much is more than usual?”

“It’s a _lot_ ” Dan smiles at him. “I was just wishing you were here and then, here you are.”

“I’m sorry. About earlier, the balcony. I was being really dramatic.”

“And that’s something of a role reversal. For us” Dan replies, softly. “It’s fine, don’t say sorry. I should have given you some more time. I just hate it when we fight.”

Phil automatically says “we never fight” but maybe that’s not entirely true anymore. “And what I said on Friday. I’m sorry about that too.”

“But you _meant_ what you said. Earlier and on Friday.” Dan points out. “Stop apologising for being honest. I meant what I said too.”

Phil says “well, that’s good. That we’re saying things we mean and stuff” and holds out his hand. 

Dan takes it, runs his thumb over Phil’s knuckles. “I sort of wish you didn’t mean it though.”

“And I wish I was reacting the way that you want me to. But I can’t.”

“That’s fine. That’s okay” they start walking. “I’m meeting Felix next week, you should know. To talk more about how to start. Or where to start.”

Phil thinks about the list, currently sitting innocently in his iphone notes. “You’ve got to start with the ones he’s given us though. We can’t keep them in the flat.”

“I don’t like them being in the flat,” Dan replies. “I don’t like them being where you are.”

For Dan, it’s probably like two worlds colliding. His past and then Phil, his present and future. Phil tries to make it lighter, says “well, Almond Blossoms is pretty, I don’t mind it being there.”

Dan winces a little. Phil wonders how many dreams of stealing that painting he actually had. The fact that, all things considered, it was a dream that could have been made into reality, Dan _could_ have stolen it. Jack, apparently, got there first. 

Dan says “what you said, on the balcony. I will come back. I don’t know how much more I can say it.”

“You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“But you don’t _believe_ me, not really.”

Phil has no idea what to say, stares down at the glittering pavement below him. He’s forgotten his gloves and his scarf, Dan is clenching his hand into his own mittened one like that point of contact is somehow going to make him warmer. He says “Dan, it’s been ten days, you need to give me more time to adjust to this. Or more time to think about it.”

Is that a lie? Possibly, he’s pretty sure that he’s taken all the time he needs to think, has come to a definite decision on what happens next. Dan says “of course, I know. It’s been a lot. I understand that.”

They go to Starbucks on their way from the tube station. While Dan queues Phil draws a smiling face in the steamed up window - huge grin, perfect fringe. 

Dan, when he brings the coffee, smiles and says “who’s that meant to be?”

Phil adds two dashes, one either side of the mouth. “It’s you.”

Dan smiles “this seems familiar.”

Phil leans over the table and kisses him. Dan makes a soft, startled noise but instantly brings his hands to Phil’s face, like he always does, fingers lightly on his cheeks. There’s nothing like kissing Dan, never has been and never will be, Phil feels it right down to the tips of his toes. He pulls aways, kisses Dan between his eyebrows, right on the crinkle that’s threatening to become a frown again.

Phil says “I should have done that the first time. I wanted to, so much.”

Dan says “I love you” with the same ease and sincerity that he always does and leans over to start his own window drawing. 

While he’s distracted Phil grabs his phone, texts Jack _we need to meet tomorrow. Tell me when and where._

~*~

Phil reads up on the Monet, given that it’s the first in the list and the first to arrive. He feels some kind of obligation to it, staring at it propped up in their hallway _still_ , where he nearly trips over it most mornings.

(he always thinks _urgh, I tripped over the Monet AGAIN_ and then there’s some degree of shock that his life has become something where he can actually think that sentence. And it’s true)

Monet called it Impression, Sunrise, because it was so hazy and blurry that it didn’t actually look like what it was meant to be (a view of the port in Le Havre). It was the reason why the Impressionist Movement got its name, it appeared in the Exhibition of the Impressionists but only got mentioned in five reviews. And only one of those mentions was actually good. 

Phil thinks that’s unfair and gives the painting a tiny pat in its top right corner, mumbles _I would have written you a decent review_.

~*~

Jack, to his amazement, actually _phones_ him, disturbing the peace of Phil’s favourite type of evenings (he’s reading but secretly watching Dan practice some new songs for the bar. He loves watching Dan play the piano). When his phone rings he dives off the sofa and out onto the freezing balcony, closing the door on Dan’s surprised “Phil?”

“Hi!” says Jack and Phil had forgotten just how loud his voice is. “Sorry to call! I’m in Vienna so I can’t meet you tomorrow. Why the urgency?”

Phil hisses “Vienna? You didn’t think to mention that last week?”

“It came up suddenly” Jack breaks off to yell something in German. “Sorry. But why the rush?”

“He’s meeting Felix next week. To get started” Phil whispers. “If it starts then I don’t know how to stop it.”

“Oh, so you want to start first? That’s not much time Phil.” 

“The order that you gave me, is that the order to do it in? Or is it random?”

“It’s the order I would use” Jack replies, after a pause. “But it’s up to you.”

“Up to me? How am I supposed to decide this? I don’t _know_ anything.”

Jack shouts something in German again, and then “I can cut this short. I can meet you on Saturday, think about what you want to start with.”

“I don’t even know how -”

“I’ll text you. Look, I have to -” the line cuts off. 

When Phil goes back inside, no longer able to feel his feet, Dan is playing something from Book of Mormon (Phil thinks). The music, hopefully, will have drowned out the whole conversation. 

Dan looks at him and says “that looked urgent.”

“Oh it was….” Phil picks the first person to appear in his brain. “My mum.”

“And you had to speak to her outside?”

“She wanted to ask me something about…” he waves his hand vaguely above his head. “You know.”

“The sky?”

Phil goes with it. “Yeah, weird right?” He returns to the sofa. “Keep playing please.”

Dan does so.

~*~

PJ comes to the bar, sits himself beside Phil.

Phil is always a little intimidated by PJ. He likes him just fine, but there’s a kind of ease about what he does, how he seems completely unbothered by his lifestyle, the lifestyle he introduced Dan to. The fact that he knows things about Dan that Phil will never know, a Dan that Phil never met.

He also has a natural charm and elegance that Phil completely envies, given that he spends his life falling over, bumping into, spilling and dropping things. 

PJ says “hey Phil” and gathers a little pile of notepaper. It’s a Thursday, which is PJ’s favourite, Request Night - he usually spends hours requesting oddly specific showtunes that neither Dan or anyone else in the bar has ever heard of ( _no, not THAT version Dan, I meant the one from the original French recording, it’s COMPLETELY different_ ). “Everything going okay?”

Phil is drawing their neighbour’s schnauzer on his paper (Dan loves that dog, it got into their flat once and Phil genuinely thinks it was the happiest day of Dan’s life). He gives PJ what he hopes is an incredulous look. 

PJ says “right, of course” and starts writing his request. It looks more like a letter. “It’s a bit of a mess really.”

“That sounds like an understatement.”

PJ frowns at him, from under his curls. “Dan tells you about this stuff?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t. It just surprises me, that’s all” PJ’s note definitely isn’t a song request, it’s a whole paragraph. “But it’s good. That you know, it’s one less worry for him.”

Phil says “one _less_ , how many other worries are going on?”

PJ sighs “I forgot that you two both do that.”

“Do what?”

“Focus on one word in a sentence” PJ folds up his note into a neat little square. “It’s going to be okay Phil. Felix has caught it early enough, he’s got a pretty decent plan of what to do, I -”

“As far as I can tell his plan is to return stolen artworks to where they came from, without somehow being caught or raising any suspicion, so that there’s nothing to find when the police actually get called.”

PJ says “that’s pretty much it.”

“That’s a decent plan to you?”

Dan, from the piano, is giving them both a slightly concerned look, PJ doesn’t notice but Phil does. 

“Of course it is. These things don’t need to be too over-complicated.”

Phil repeats “these things.”

PJ says “Phil, it’s going to be okay. Two months and this whole issue is done. You two can go back to whatever you were doing before.”

“Two months isn’t much time,” Phil replies. “Is it?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to him, Phil. I promise. Nothing ever happened before and, I mean he’s my friend and everything, he was pretty useless at times.”

Phil feels an instant need to defend Dan, to say _hey! My boyfriend’s art stealing skills weren’t that bad_. He doesn’t say it aloud but PJ looks amused, like he did. Phil says “how did you get into this, exactly? I know how Dan did but nothing about anyone else.”

PJ shrugs. “I don’t know. The excitement? I read about the Boston heist randomly when I was in college and thought all that money sounded pretty cool. It was never really a _decision_ , not that I can remember. I just started with one and then kept going.”

PJ takes his request which obviously isn’t a request up to the piano, drops it into Dan’s lap. Dan doesn’t look at it, but gives PJ a narrow eyed glance and uses a break in the music to put the note in his shirt pocket. 

“It’ll be different for him this time” PJ says, returning to his seat.

Phil says “how so?”

“Well, _you’re_ here now. Obviously,” PJ smiles at him, a kind reassuring smile that genuinely, for an evening at least, makes Phil feel a little better. 

“Of course I am. I’m not going anywhere.”

Dan loves Phil’s dog note so much that he has to stop playing, right in the middle of An Unexpected Song, to truly appreciate it. He apologises, like he always does, says “sorry guys. My boyfriend distracted me.”

The bar, like it always does, echoes with a chorus of “awwwww”’s.

Dan always says he should stand up when Dan mentions him because _I’m proud of you. I’m proud to be WITH you. Accept the awwws_ so this time he actually does, stands to his full height and gives Dan a wave.

Dan, instead of a wave back, pulls at his shirt collar.

~*~

Jack says “oh! The Monet! The Monet’s _easy_.”

They’re meeting at an American themed diner, because Jack apparently already knows the way to make Phil agree to things. With pancakes and maybe waffles. They’re sat close to the jukebox, to try and muffle the volume of Jack’s voice.

(Phil wonders if he and Mark ever worked together. Their combined voices would surely shatter the sound barrier.)

Jack’s hair is somehow greener, like he’s upped the brightness.“ That was just a private collector, some lady in Belgravia who’d inherited it. It’s simple, it’s a good one to start with.”

Phil says “you took it from her _house_?”

Jack says “yeah” looking baffled. Off Phil’s look he says “she had like 30 paintings there, she didn’t even notice it was missing for a week.”

“I didn’t think you stole from people’s houses” his pancakes all of a sudden taste like cardboard. He puts his fork down. “I mean. That _belongs_ to someone. Not just a museum. To a person.”

“She kept it in the corner, completely in the shade. Why would you keep a painting of a sunrise in the shade?”

“And I suppose that _you_ kept it in direct sunlight, on full display, all the time.”

Jack gives him a tiny smile. “Touche.” 

“I want the three out of the flat first. After this we’ll do the Degas and the Matisse?” judging by Jack’s wince he messes up the pronunciation a little. 

“I thought you had the Van Gogh too?”

Phil hesitates. Dan is pretty attached to Almond Blossoms - Phil knows it signifies _something_ , something more than it just being a painting that Dan thought Phil would like. “We could do that one last. Maybe.” 

Jack looks intrigued but doesn’t push. “So, Belgravia. She’s still there. She keeps all the art in a converted basement, her father, or maybe grandfather, whatever, left her a whole bunch but the Monet’s really the best one.”

“So what did you do?”

“Doesn’t matter what I did, that’s irrelevant” Jack shakes his hand, like he’s waving that line of conversation away. “You need to break in, rehang it, and go. She’s at parties and events all the fucking time, it’ll be easy.”

“Won’t there be security? Or cameras?”

Jack pauses for a second, which is enough of a pause for Phil.

“Can’t I leave it outside?”

“What, knock the door and run?” Jack laughs (he has a loud laugh. A waitress drops a tray of milkshakes from shock). “I mean, I’ve heard stupider ideas.”

“Seriously?”

“She doesn’t really have security. She lives alone, pretty secluded. You could just break into the living room or something, leave it there.”

“Or _outside_ ” Phil says.

Jack slurps his milkshake, too loudly, and says “or outside. It’s fine. It’s a good one to start with. I’ll send the address, you can do it Monday. It’s like a hour tops, Dan will never know.”

Phil waits for him to finish but Jack doesn’t; he’s busy drinking and tapping at his phone screen. “That’s it? That’s all the help?”

“I’d rather save the help for later on,” Jack thuds his glass to the table.

~*~

When Dan gets back from work he says “hey, where’s the Monet?”

Phil, having fully prepared his reply, says “I moved it. I kept tripping over it all the time. It’s in the bedroom with the others.”

It’s actually in Phil’s folio bag, where it just about fits. Phil hopes that Dan doesn’t go to the bedroom and check.

He doesn’t, of course. He trusts Phil completely and utterly, says “okay, no problem.”

~*~

The “some lady in Belgravia” is named Melody Carter. She’s in her late thirties and, as far as Phil can make out, inherited a lot of money from her grandfather and lives a fairly reserved, quiet life.

There’s a few pieces about the Monet, about the private collection. Apparently her grandfather used to put it on show all the time but she never has. There’s a, very small, quote from her in one of the articles, stating an obscene amount of money for a reward and saying _I just want it to come back_ like the painting itself had walked off and left her.

~*~

Phil, at the mantlepiece, says “when I said, let’s never talk about this again….”

Dan, sat at the piano bench, says “you said it twice actually. In those exact words.”

“I’m not sure that was realistic.”

Dan tilts his head to one side, looks at Phil like he’s trying to work out what’s going on in his mind. “What in particular do you want to talk about?”

Phil sits beside him, crosses his legs on top of the bench so he can face Dan properly. “How many of you are there?”

“All together? Sixteen I think. Not more than that. That’s including Felix.”

“And I’ve met four of them?”

Dan is frowning but in an intrigued sort of way. “Yeah. Felix, PJ and Louise. And Mark, if Skype meetings count."

“So who _haven’t_ I met?”

“Uh, there’s Tyler. But actually you might have met him at the gallery. Without realising. He doesn’t do it anymore though. And then Caspar.” Dan sighs. “I’m terrible with names, uh, there’s Alfie. Joe. Marcus. I never really worked with them though, it was mostly me, PJ and Louise. A couple outside England, there’s some American ones, like Mark, Jack’s in Ireland but he mainly worked on his own. I think there’s one in -”

Phil finds the mention and grabs onto it. “Working on your own must be lonely though. Why would he do that?”

“Preferred it. His success rate was ridiculous” Dan ponders this. “They’ve probably all got their list of nine too, and they’re -”

“Can I see it? The list?”

Dan holds out his phone. The list is the same as Jack’s, the order is a little different, but overall, the same. 

_Lavender Mist. Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino. New York Movie. Impression, Sunrise. The Piano Lesson. Lady Agnew. Almond Blossoms. Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers. Boreas._

“You think this is a list of what someone else stole?” Phil says, innocently. His lying ability again catches in his throat. How easy he finds it. 

Dan nods.

“Does that mean someone else has got your list?”

Dan nods again. 

“Have you seen other people’s lists?”

Dan says “no. I don’t think anyone has.”

“So you stole nine paintings?”

Dan says “Phil” in a tone which indicates that he obviously stole more than nine. “There’s a few people where there would have to be multiple lists.”

“And you’re one of them?”

Dan nods, a slow motion nod that he doesn’t quite resurface from, leaving his head bowed. He says “I think I fill at least four lists. Maybe four and a half. Me and PJ.”

~*~

Mondays are Dan’s full days at the school, which he claims to find really tiring but always returns from looking so completely at ease with himself (bright eyed and carrying sheet music) that Phil ends up pinning him to the wall next to the kitchen, trailing kisses all over his face. The sheet music gets scattered right across their hall, where it won’t get picked up until Tuesday because Monday nights end up being pretty busy. Usually.

Dan says “I’ll be back by 5” and then notices Phil’s folio bag “do you have a presentation? You didn’t say.”

Phil says “yes. A presentation. On editing. That’s what I study.”

Dan says “uh huh” slowly. He leans forward, kisses Phil below his ear. “Good luck, let me know how it goes.”

“I will. I love you.”

Dan stays leant forward, on his toes, adds another kiss (a tiny press) on Phil’s cheek. “I love you too.”

~*~

Melody Carter’s house is, thankfully, right in the quietest corner of the street, completely hidden from the road by some pretty glorious rose bushes. All shades of pinks, red and peach - Phil wants to stop at take a photo of them but imagines that would be frowned upon in the art thievery world, which he is apparently a part of now.

Art returner, he decides. Sounds better. Nicer. 

He walks up the path, which is blocked on each side by a giant rose of Sharon, planning his escape route in advance. Cataloging the things he could potentially trip over. The first of these things ends up being a tiny Pomeranian wearing a purple collar, which appears from nowhere and headbutts his Converse.

Phil says “oh, hello.”

The dog yaps. From somewhere behind the flower bushes another yap starts. Then another one, behind him, like a Pomeranian army is about to attack. He actually wouldn’t mind that, under different circumstances. 

Phil kneels down, scratches behind the dog’s ears. It wags its tail to the point that it vibrates but doesn’t stop barking. Its collar says Claude so Phil says “Claude, seriously. Calm down.”

The next sound isn’t a yap, it’s a woman’s voice. She says “can I help you?” from the door. Phil freezes to the spot and doesn’t look up, as if by staying still he’s somehow making himself invisible.

She repeats it.

He thinks, momentarily, about dropping the bag and running but he would surely fall over the first little dog that appeared in his path so, maybe not. He hisses “thanks a lot Claude”

“I’m not going to ask a third time.”

Phil finally looks up. Melody Carter is standing on her porch, all red hair and floor length floral print. She has one hand on her hip, expectantly.

Phil says “I’m sorry. I just - I have something for you. But I have to explain it first. Before you do anything.” 

She frowns at him. “Well, that sounds intriguing. In a completely innocent and non-creepy way.”

Claude, look of maniacal glee on his face, starts trying to climb Phil’s leg. As Phil says “hey, _Claude_ ” he suddenly thinks oh, Claude _Monet_ , which is an amazing way to start. “It’s not creepy. I swear.”

“Then what is it?”

“I have something that belongs to you. I’m bringing it back.”

“You should probably come closer then.”

Phil takes small, hesitant, steps up the path to the porch and, when he’s close enough for her to see but also far away enough that he could, potentially, run if needed, opens the folio bag. 

He’s only lifted the top centimeter of the painting when Melody sighs. He was expecting a gasp, maybe a scream, not this sad exhale of breath, so he pauses.

She says “is it the real one?”

Phil says “yes.”

“You should probably come inside.”

Phil, meekly, says “should I?”

“I should probably know your name too.”

Phil thinks _don’t say Phil, don’t under any circumstances say Phil, your name is not Phil, pick literally any other name_

He says “it’s Phil.”

_oh come ON Phil._

Melody turns to go inside, looks back at him over her shoulder. “Come on then.”

“I don’t -”

“I know you didn’t steal it Phil. Stop looking so scared.”

“I should explain first.”

Melody ducks through the door, quickly, comes back out with a photo in a silver frame, holds it up so he can see. She repeats “I know you didn’t steal it.”

The photo is of her and Jack. His hair isn’t green, it’s dark brown, but still, definitely Jack. They look like they’re at a party, both in formal wear. Jack is grinning right at the camera, arm around Melody like he’s putting her on display.

Phil says “oh.”

“Exactly,” Melody turns away from him again, Claude runs past them both into the house. “Come on.”

This time Phil does.

~*~

“Four and a half is a lot of lists.”

Dan, head still bowed, said “it is. But I did it for a few years. I think it was five or six a year? I don’t remember exactly.”

“All from galleries?”

“No.”

“Okay."

“It’s not though, is it?”

Phil tilted Dan’s head up, finger under his chin. “I said it was okay and it is.”

Nine times four and a half is what, forty? Is that forty fake names? _Forty_ different Dans that Phil doesn’t, and never will, know?

~*~

The collection is, as Jack said, in the basement. It’s pretty impressive, the walls are dark teal and each painting has a spotlight above and below it, like they’re hovering in mid air.

There’s a huge gap of space with four spotlights, all illuminating nothing. 

“You know that man” Melody says. “In the photo.”

“Not really. A little bit, but not properly.” Phil wonders what name Jack used. But then Jack itself is a fake name, he said as much. 

“But enough to return that to me?” she gestures to the bag, where the Monet still is. “That’s a lot to do for someone you don’t know.”

“I’m not doing it for him,” Phil says. “Someone I……. someone I love is sort of caught up in this too. I’m doing it for them”

“So they don’t have to?”

Phil risks smiling at her. She doesn’t return it. “Basically yes”

“That’s risky. Not everyone is going to be as nice as me.”

Nice isn’t the word Phil would use. Sad, maybe. “I waited a long time for him to come back. I’m not going to let him go again. If it’s risky then I can deal with that. As long as he doesn’t have to.”

Melody looks at him like this makes sense, like it isn’t just the ramblings of someone struggling with the clasps on a folio bag. “I understand."

“You do?” Phil releases the Monet. At the sight of it, in full, Melody sighs again, reaches her hands out. Phil passes it over. 

She keeps it held at arm's length, presumably so that she can see it all, the whole beautiful thing. “Things come back to you, if you’re patient, don’t they?”

“I like to think so.”

“Even if you wait a really long time.”

“Even if you wait forever, I guess” Phil’s heart is beating high in his chest, almost to his throat. He feels on edge, like the teal room is closing in on him. He wishes that Melody Carter _had_ been angry, had threatened to call the police, rather than this sadness, this melancholy that seems infectious, like she’s transferring it over to him.

“Is he a thief too? This person that you’re helping?”

Phil says “ _was_. He _was_.”

~*~

Phil could look at photos of Dan in Japan for hours. He could look at any photos of Dan for hours, could look at actual Dan for hours but something about how he was in Japan in particular stays in Phil’s heart. Right from the second that, three months after the Tate, he’d pressed his forehead against Phil’s and said _run away with me for the summer_ and Phil had said “ _yes_. Through every moment that he’d shouted _Phil look at this, Phil can we go there, Phil I’m going to buy every Pokemon plushie they have, Phil, Phil, Phil_. All pink cheeks and soft hair and his. Right up to the plane home when Dan had leant on his shoulder and said _this is the most fun I’ve ever had_.

Phil had to look away from him sometimes because sometimes it was just too much to take in. 

When they’d got back his mother had phoned to see how it had gone and Phil, answering a question about how weird the toilets were, ended up staring at Dan (asleep on their sofa in an awful Sword Art Online hoodie that Phil had tried to talk him out of buying) and saying “Mum, I love him”, which was a pretty abrupt change of subject.

~*~

Melody has a lot of photos of Jack, all very similar, all at parties, but a lot just the same. All in a drawer in her second kitchen (“the first is for special occasions”) that she opens and they both stare into.

Phil says “you kept these” and thinks of course you did, of course you kept them.

She says “I did.”

Phil wants to ask questions that he really doesn’t want the answers to. He awkwardly pulls at his fringe, attempts to tidy it. “How long have -”

“A long time. We met at a function and he was so wonderful. We were so similar, he liked all the same things I do.”

Phil thinks _I bet he did_ but says “I think -”

“It was all research obviously. Reading up on me. But some of it must have been genuine, right? You can’t spend all that time with someone and -”

In his darkest moments, his loneliest loneliness, Phil thought that about Dan. That the whole thing had been a honey trap, a way to get nearer to the painting. He would have been such an easy target, so obviously gone on Dan from the beginning. He imagined Dan telling a whole group of friends (in Phil’s head wearing proper thief stripes and polo necks) about how gullible Phil was, how funny it was that Phil honestly believed that Dan loved him. Liked him even.

“ - and not at least like them a little bit. You know?”

He kept his photos because of how Dan looked at him in them. You can’t fake that, he knew. He looked, looks, at those photos and thought _that’s someone who’s in love with me_. For real. 

Jack isn’t looking at Melody in any of the photos. Phil says “no, I don’t think you can” gently, and narrows his eyes at Jack’s beaming face.

He says “I should go” because he thinks he might cry a little, standing in this second kitchen, looking into a drawer of fake memories. 

Melody looks like she wants to ask him to stay, but doesn’t. 

Phil, as he’s leaving, says “you should show off your paintings, you know. They deserve to be looked at, or for other people to appreciate them like you do.”

She says “I know. My father was just very protective of them. I tried to be the same but, look what happened.”

“I think you should. I think it would make you happy, to see people enjoying them.”

She looks like she’s considering this and “there’s a reward.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

When she closes the door Phil lets out a huge sigh that he wasn’t quite sure he was carrying but appears to come from his heart, a sigh for Melody Carter, and her drawer of photos. Photos of someone Phil is pretty sure is _never_ coming back. He sits down, right on the cold grass. Claude (or maybe another Pomeranian) bounds straight over into his lap.

Phil says “Claude, I’m glad that’s over,” and Possible Claude licks his nose, which Phil takes as an agreement.

~*~

When Dan walks through the door Phil’s already waiting, pushes him back up against it, kisses him like they haven’t seen each other in years, presses his lips up Dan’s neck to his chin to his mouth, spreads his fingers across his ribs, rucking up his sensible teacher sweater.

Dan says “wow, hi” when he’s finally able to get some air.

“I hate this sweater, take it off.”

“You love my ugly teaching clothes.”

“At this moment in time I hate it.” 

Dan pulls it up over his head, having to lean out of Phil’s grasp, momentarily. Phil makes a needy noise, like he’s actually leaning miles away, and connects their mouths again as soon as the (not that ugly really) sweater is on the floor. 

Phil wants it to be a kiss that is only going to lead one way, a kiss that starts with clothes and sheet music scattered through the house, but Dan slows it right down, patiently, until Phil (one hand pressed to the door above him) joins him, almost sobbing into Dan’s mouth.

Dan, running his hands up and down Phil’s back, says “hey. Not that I’m complaining, but - are you okay?”

Phil, carefully placing a chain of kisses down Dan’s neck to his shoulder, says “I missed you.”

“It’s been about seven hours.”

“And I’m glad you’re here.”

Dan, voice full of fondness, says “I’m glad you’re here too.”

Phil is determined not to think about Melody, waiting in that flower surrounded house, so he doesn’t. He thinks about nothing but Dan, stumbling down the corridor into their bedroom, just Dan, the way he tastes, the way he smells (even if, at the moment, that’s mostly the cheap coffee they serve at the music school), the sounds that he makes that he never did before, how he’s finally as loud as Phil imagined him to be, in the beginning. Dan, the only word that Phil, who usually is both loud and pretty eloquent in bed, can say.

Afterwards, Dan laces their hands together and says “I love you.”

Phil says “I’m glad you came back” which is the same thing, really.

~*~

It’s hidden pretty well on the London section of the BBC website but Dan somehow finds it anyway. He probably has artists’ names on google alert, got a notification as soon as the _MISSING MONET FOUND_ article popped up.

Dan says “but it was on my list. How the fuck?”

The article says _Ms Carter is extremely grateful for the return of a painting which has meant so much to her family and has decided to hold a private showing of her collection later on this year. She told reporters “I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I think this was the wake up call that I needed. It’s a shame to keep these paintings where only I can see them.”_

_Ms Carter has decided to take no further action in attempting to locate the returner of the painting, saying “it’s enough for me that it’s back”_

Dan says “I don’t understand. Did anyone come to collect it? While I wasn’t here?”

Phil shrugs “I would have told you.”

Dan repeats “I don’t _understand_.”

“That’s one returned anyway. And you didn’t even need to leave the flat.”

The frown between Dan’s eyebrows is a deep crevice. He keeps zooming in and out of the text on their ipad, like that will somehow reveal something. “I mean, Felix could have got it. I guess. Or maybe the one we had was a fake? But it looked _real_ , and I’m normally -”

Phil screenshots the article later and saves it to his phone, updates his notes. 

**Impression, Sunrise, successfully returned.**

~*~

“The next one’s harder” Jack says, over the phone. “You understand that, right. They’re going to get steadily more difficult.”

“He didn’t even need to leave the flat” Phil says. “He was completely safe, the entire time. He was teaching kids to play Beethoven, exactly like he should be.”

“Phil, this one was easy. You’re not going to be able to charm heiresses for all of them.” 

“You’d know about charming heiresses,” Phil regrets it as soon as he says it but, also doesn’t regret it at the same time. Melody Carter and her drawer of photos have really caught in his mind. 

Jack says “it’s not all nice all the time Phil. Sometimes you have to find a way in.”

“She’s a person. Not a way in.”

There’s a long pause. Jack finally, after about ten seconds, says “we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. The Matisse is next. I’ll call you.”

He hangs up.

~*~

When Phil met Dan, it was in front of a painting that Phil thought was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen (until he saw Dan, of course). He liked looking at it, the sun on the waves, the boats. It made him feel peaceful, at ease.

Despite everything that happened then and since, despite The Sea at Saintes Maries being part of their backstory, the centrepiece of their entire relationship, paperclipped into every scrapbook; Dan has always looked at it the same way. Slight frown, with a hint of wariness. Like he’s zoned out a little. 

Every guest who ever came to the gallery, and they didn’t have many really, stopped at the painting and said variations on _oh isn’t it lovely isn’t it calming doesn’t it remind you of the summer_ and Phil would nod along happily and agree with it all.

Dan said _I like how lonely the boats look_ and it was such a change of direction that Phil had frozen with almost a comedy sound effect in the background, the screech of a needle being pulled off a record. _Look how small they are compared to everything else. Don’t you find that lonely?_

Phil thought so many things then. He remembers all of them; how badly he had wanted to make this boy happy, but also wanted to wrap him in cotton wool, to make it his personal goal to keep him safe. To remove the smudges from under his eyes and the frown from between his eyebrows. 

When it was finally just the two of them he felt like he’d caught something rare and delicate, was watching it bloom and grow, enveloping it with as much love as he could possibly give. And they’d been so happy, they _were_ so happy, they ARE so happy, and Phil can’t let that get taken away. He just can’t. 

“I don’t get it,” Dan says again, still zooming in and out of the article.

Phil, lightly, nosing at his cheek, says “but it’s one job down. Right?”

“I guess” Dan turns a little, to face him, gives Phil full access to his neck, the hinge of his jaw, that one spot under his ear that makes his back arch. “I just, I don’t - I can’t think when you’re doing that.”

“Then don’t think,” Phil says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Impression, Sunrise really was stolen in 1985 (from the Musee Marmottan Monet); it was recovered (with eight other paintings) in 1990 and has been back in the museum since 1991. 
> 
> \- (I genuinely did not know that when I picked it for this fic)
> 
> \- The Boston art theft referred to here was a real thing and you can read about it [in this article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft). The artwork stolen totals $500 million (hence PJ’s comment!) and all the pieces are still missing.


	4. 2. woman seated beside a vase of flowers - edgar degas

Of course, Dan never stops thinking. Phil should know better than to assume he would. His mind is a symphony of constant ideas, worries, plans and questions. 

The first thing Dan says, when they wake up, Phil lying across Dan’s chest, head pillowed on his shoulder, is “I don’t get it,” like the conversation from yesterday never ended.

Phil says “what?” despite already knowing the answer. 

“The _Monet_. How did it get back with Melody Carter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone got confused about whose list was whose, or something.”

“And, what, broke into our flat?” Dan shakes his head. He’s squirming a little, trying to get up, Phil stubbornly stays exactly where he is. “I don’t see how it happened.”

It’s actually pretty obvious, Phil can admit that. The answer, for Dan, is hiding in plain sight, sprawled over him with an arm around his waist, refusing to get up. For once, Phil’s glad that Dan always wears rose tinted glasses when it comes to him. “The main thing is it’s returned though. Right?”

Dan shrugs. “It’s one off the list. But what if someone else is working on the same list? I don’t get it.”

“Maybe Felix got mixed up. Who knows?”

“He doesn’t get mixed up. I mean, I see why you’d get that impression but, believe me, he doesn’t.”

Phil finally rolls to the side but Dan rolls with him, so they’re facing each other. He brushes Phil’s hair out of its usual morning quiff, runs his thumb along Phil’s jaw, like he’s trying to soothe him. Phil instantly has a bad feeling so he says “I don’t know why you’re not seeing this as a good thing.”

Dan stops, fingers to Phil’s cheekbone, and says “you’re not at least worried that someone was, apparently, in our flat?”

“Not if they took the painting away,” Phil replies, childishly.

Dan sighs and says “Phil” but he doesn’t sound overly annoyed. He resumes running his fingers through Phil’s hair, which eventually turns into actual petting. “I just, it’s weird, that’s all. I don’t like not having an explanation.”

“It’s nice what she said,” Phil says. “About showing her paintings.” There’s a slight hint of pride in his voice. He can hear it. He wonders how obvious it is. Not that he takes any credit for Melody Carter deciding to actually let her collection out into the world but, still, it makes him happy to think about it. About her stepping away from that sad house. 

Dan smiles at him, a tiny lift of the right side of his mouth, says “yeah, it was. Must have made her think, whatever way it happened.”

“Well, getting something back makes you realise how much you loved it in the first place,” Phil says, softly. Then, because it’s far too early in the morning for this conversation, “I guess.”

Dan’s dimple is so deep that Phil has to reach out and touch his finger to it. Dan smiles even wider, says “you _guess_?” and kisses Phil’s reply right out of his mouth.

~*~

Dan had avoided him for days after the Starbucks outing. Phil was calling it an outing because, as Chris had said numerous times, it wasn’t a date. It’s only a date if both people are aware of it being so. Which is fine because Phil is used to being avoided after possible-dates, but never by someone who he was pretty sure actually _liked_ him.

Chris had blinked in surprise and said “well, that’s not something you usually say” because, it wasn’t. Phil had spent most of his late teens, early twenties and, to be honest, a good chunk of his mid twenties, missing signals that were apparently obvious. “You think he does?”

“He looks at me like he knows who I am.”

“What?” 

“Like he knows who I am, or what I’m like, and that he’s -” Phil waved a hand around. “I don’t know.”

“Into it?” Chris looked bemused, but then it was the complete opposite of the conversations they usually had about Phil’s romantic life. “Wants to see you again?”

“But I feel like I know him too. But I _don’t_.”

“Are you sure? Is he from around here? What’s his surname?”

~*~

Phil breaks out of the memory to say, halfway through opening their front door, “hey, what was Dylan’s last name?”

Dan freezes, halfway through winding his scarf, “I never told you that?”

“Not that I remember,” and he would have remembered. He remembered every tiny detail that Dan told him. 

“Well, that was pretty relaxed of us. We were _living_ together.” 

“Dan.”

“It was Powell. All of my surnames were Powell, even if I was meant to be French or whatever. I couldn’t remember them otherwise. And my handwriting’s so bad that it looked the same even if I accidentally wrote Howell. Which I did, a lot.” Dan gives him a quizzical look. “Why are you asking about this?”

Dan always gets slightly on edge when Dylan is mentioned, like Dylan is a genuine ex of Phil’s who really did go to work with baby pandas and is one day going to reappear and steal him away. Phil says “no reason. I was just thinking about it.”

“About Manchester?” Dan is still caught mid action, holding an end of his scarf in each hand. “Why?”

“There were good things about it too,” Phil leans over and ties Dan’s scarf for him. “Weren’t there? Lots of good things.”

September had been their one year anniversary. Except neither of them were sure whether or not to acknowledge it, given that the year had started in Manchester, (in a September that seemed far longer ago, like it had happened to two other people), then taken a pause halfway through and then started again in June. Dan had been oddly jittery and tense for most of the day before finally saying _it’s one year of being in love with you, regardless of the circumstances. We can celebrate that right?_ and so they had.

Dan says “yeah, there were,” very softly, watching Phil loop the scarf around his neck. “I think it’s easy to forget that sometimes.”

~*~

When Dan had finally reappeared, a week after the possible date, Phil had said “found you at last. I was starting to think you were avoiding me” and he knew that it was true, that Dan had been, just from the look of guilt on his face.

He’d accepted the obvious excuse because he didn’t want Dan to leave. Which was something he ended up doing a lot, over the next few weeks. Months. Accepting things just to keep Dan with him.

Dan said “you don’t even know me” like he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to.

Phil said “I want to though. I mean, if you also wanted to. Know me. That is,” which wasn’t exactly the smoothest thing he’d ever said. 

But Dan had looked at him like he was remembering something, like Phil had said those exact words to him in another life and he’d been waiting to hear them again. When he said “I want to” he looked at a patch of wall just over Phil’s head.

Phil said “can I see - are you free tonight? Or is that too soon?”

Tonight wasn’t soon enough. The next five seconds weren’t soon enough. Phil had wanted to grab his hand and walk out of work right there and then; had to clench his fingers into a fist just to stop doing exactly that. He had never, ever, in his life felt the way that he did (does) around Dan, like Dan is too much, not enough, exactly right, _perfect_ , all at the same time.

Dan said “I’m free” slightly high pitched and fake casual. The blush on his cheeks contradicted the tone.

Phil said “okay” and his voice sounded exactly the same. He was sure that he was blushing too, that they were standing blushing at each other, and he had to close his mouth against all of the almost words jumping up from his heart.

~*~

They separate in front of the Tube station, Dan is walking to Chalk Farm for “a meeting” that Phil has stubbornly refused to ask anything more about, Phil has to go to the University for a class and then a Degas research session in the library.

They’re not much for PDAs, Dan just gives him a little salute and is about to start walking on when Phil grabs at his collar. Dan says “what?” and then has to repeat it because Phil is, apparently, just going to hold his collar and stare at him. 

Phil kisses him on the tiny section of jaw visible above his scarf and says “nothing. I just.”

When he leans back Dan is smiling. He says “you’re in a good mood.”

“Is that unusual?”

“That’s not what I mean. I like how you’re being, that’s all.”

“I’ll carry on being it then” Phil says, brushes their noses together. “Will you meet me, after my class?”

Dan, reluctantly, says “I can’t. I don’t know how long this is going to take. PJ’s freaking out and I -”

Phil, determined to keep being how he’s being, whatever that may be, sighs against Dan’s cheek. “That’s fine. I’ll see you at home.”

~*~

As far as Phil can make out, after reading most of the books in the library’s art section, Degas was a bit of a douche who made fun of Monet for painting outdoor scenes, hated all of the Impressionists and argued with every single one of his friends. He also said “the artist must live alone” which seems, to Phil, a pretty sad moto to live your life by. The woman in the painting is probably the wife of one of Degas’ friends, before he fought with them all.

The vase is full of dahlias, asters and gaillardias; summer flowers. The delicate kind that Phil could never keep alive, even if he tried really hard. 

(but then he couldn’t even keep a pothos plant alive, and Dan only bought it because _the guy in the shop said they’re impossible to kill, Phil, it barely needs any water. It doesn’t matter if you forget_. The pothos had lasted all of a month. Dan’s research into Plants That Even Phil Can Keep Alive continued, a whole list of them, but as of yet they haven’t found one. All the plants wilt, even with Phil’s complete undivided love and attention.)

~*~

Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers is a big painting. It’s not going to fit in Phils folio bag. It won’t fit in any of their suitcases. He has to walk with it clutched to his chest, and the frame bangs against his knees every time he takes a step around the guest bedroom. He has no idea how it’s going to work.

He’s interrupted in the middle of pondering this by a loud banging on their door. No one ever knocks their door, besides Felix, and he’s not particularly in much of a mood for a Felix visit. The thought of it is enough to make him pause and very tentatively walk down the hallway. 

The person on the other side of the door isn’t Felix, but instead is someone he’s only seen in the window of a Skype conversation but is, in real life, just as Phil expected - giant arms, red streaked hair and all.

“Phil!” Mark booms. “Hi! It’s so good to finally meet you in person!” he jumps into the hall and hugs Phil, nearly lifting him off the ground even though Phil has a good few inches in height on him.

“Hi Mark,” Phil says, despite currently having all the air squeezed out of him. “I didn’t know you were visiting. Dan didn’t say.”

Mark releases him (Phil’s ribs feel bruised) and says “I was going to let him know but I left earlier than I was expecting. I’ve got, uh, some stuff to do here. In London.” He gestures to his bags. “I brought you guys a whole load of American cereal though.”

Phil remembers Dan, a while ago, saying that Mark doesn’t like hotels so, he leaves Mark in the living room while he sets up the nicest guest bedroom in a way that his mother would be proud of. When he comes back, after making sure the bed is as neat as possible, Mark is standing in front of the Van Gogh.

Mark says “that’s Almond Blossoms”

Phil says “oh right, yeah” as though he’s only just noticed it being there. 

“I always liked the floral ones” Mark continues staring, an odd expression on his face. “They’re really calming, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t really looked at it that much.”

Somewhere in the midst of the conversation Jack texts _this one’s a gallery. Here’s the link. I’ll let you know meeting arrangements._

Mark is exactly as Phil expected; takes over the entire room, loud, enthusiastic and completely enamoured by everything; the piano in particular. He taps Ophelia’s painted hair and says “I can’t believe Dan got rid of the Steinway.”

Phil says “the what?”

Mark stops tapping. “Oh, nothing. There was just…...there was a Steinway here before. When we were here. Wow, how long ago is that?”

“It’s nine months,” Phil replies. 

“Wow” Mark says again. He looks tremendously awkward, like he wishes never having even mentioned the piano, and in attempt to save himself says “but this one is much better. Than the Steinway. I mean.”

Phil doesn’t think that an old piano taken from an exhibition can compete with a _Steinway_ but what can he say. Another sudden flash of Dan’s old life - where he had thirty thousand pounds worth of solid oak grand piano, and now he has a cheap painted one. And a Phil.

“I said something wrong” Mark says, eyes flickering over Phil’s face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you know, or how much he wants you to know, or how much I should _say_ , or -”

“It’s fine” Phil says. “I know most of it. It’s fine.”

In the kitchen, making Mark’s coffee, he stands for a second, leaning his forehead against their fridge door, stuck halfway through the motion of getting milk. He hears Dan come in, the shout of joy he makes when he, presumably, sees Mark, hears Dan say _where’s Phil, is he here? Have you met him? I can’t wait for you to meet him_ , which is the perfect opportunity for Phil to shout _I’m here. We’ve met_ but he doesn’t. 

Dan says “why are you hiding in here?” suddenly very close to Phil’s side.

“I’m not hiding. I’m making coffee.” Phil is aware that he actually looks like he’s paused in the act, frozen in front of the fridge. 

Dan frowns like he doubts that but continues “I thought we could go out. For dinner. I haven’t seen Mark for months, and I want you to meet him properly.”

When they come out of the kitchen Mark says “Phil! You kept the begonias alive”, his nose pressed to the glass of the balcony doors. “They look great.”

Phil says “oh, no, I can’t keep plants alive. I just leave them alone. Which is probably _why_ they’re alive.”

Mark keeps up a steady, enthusiastic chatter throughout the walk to the restaurant, the dinner itself, into drinks afterwards, and then the walk back home. He talks about everything, including a whole twenty minutes on their dessert, as though stopping to pause might result in him saying something he shouldn’t, something that Phil shouldn’t know.

Phil takes pity on him when they get back to the flat, acts like he’s tired and needs to go to bed early, leaves Mark and Dan together in the living room where they can, presumably, talk about stealing art like old times, without having to worry about him hearing.

~*~

Phil brings up the link Jack texted to him. The gallery is called “The Little Gallery on the River”, just to make it extra adorable, and to make Phil feel even worse. It’s in Chelsea, opposite side of the Thames from Battersea Park, and is a pretty white building with four rooms and a tiny courtyard with a fountain.

As far as Phil can make out the Degas was gifted to them and had a room all to itself. There are a few articles about the theft, which happened about the same time as the Manchester one, as far as he can see.

The gallery owner looks only a few years older than Phil, has a mass of curly hair and is named Dean. All the photos of him have him posing by the fountain, hand on one hip. The Degas room has been left empty, because “I have confidence that we’ll find it, one day. I mean, nothing goes missing forever and it belongs here. I’ll never stop looking and I’ll never give up hope.”

Phil has no idea how The Little Gallery on the River is even still open. Their website has a virtual tour where you can go round all the rooms in two minutes, see every piece of art without paying the admission fee. And one of the rooms is, of course, completely empty. There’s no way they can possibly be making any money, yet Dean’s smile gets wider in every photo, his shirts get more expensive looking (living with Dan for this long means that Phil can identify a decent shirt from photo alone). It doesn’t add up.

~*~

Degas died alone, spending the last years of his life wandering around Paris, nearly blind, with no friends or family left, having driven them all away.

Jack says “yeah, and people just remember him for painting ballerinas.”

They’re in a bar (a bit of a change from their usual cafes and patisseries), a pretty crowded, loud one, full of students and city types - the kind of bar Phil hates. He pulls at his fox sweater and tries to make himself as small as possible in the corner of their booth. “I didn’t remember him for anything. I don’t really know much about art.”

“And think of everything you’re learning!” Jack replies cheerfully. 

Phil raises his eyebrows, looks incredulous. “Wow, of course. _That’s_ what I’m taking from this. _Art knowledge_.”

Jack laughs, a huge bark of a HA! Which attracts everyone’s attention, and says “I love it when you’re sassy, Phil.” Phil gives him an unimpressed look. “So, the Degas. You’ve seen the gallery?”

“Yes. And it’s _tiny_. It’s even smaller than -” Phil cuts himself off. “I don’t see how I can do it.”

“I did it in a day” Jack says, almost proudly. “Not even a _day_ , like two hours. The owner’s completely useless, there’s no security. There were only three other people there, on my job. There’s probably less now.”

“Probably?”

Jack adds “it’s not a normal job Phil. It’s a bit backwards. I’d just dump it in there and run, to be honest. It’s the type of place where you can do that.”

Phil doesn’t run, unless in extreme circumstances, or if he’s being chased. He doesn’t intend on being chased. He’s not sure how to tell Jack this. “That sounds easier said than done.”

“I’d get it done soon. Like, next week soon.” Jack drains his pint. “I mean, I’m sure you just want to get this all over and done with.”

As they’re leaving Jack reaches out and catches Phil on the shoulder. Phil instantly stops. Jack says “is it true that Mark’s staying with you?”

It’s such an abrupt change of subject, such a sudden change in _Jack_ , who is all wide eyes and impossibly small voice, that Phil can only say “huh?”

“Never mind” he shakes his head and is instantly himself again. “I’ll see you Phil, keep in touch.” Jack turns to the left and is instantly caught up in the crowd of people walking to the tube station.

~*~

The painting fits perfectly in precisely one thing in their entire flat - the empty cardboard box of their Ikea coffee table; Dan had insisted on keeping it because they, apparently, would “never know when we might need a box that size” and Phil had blindly agreed without realising that Dan probably wanted to keep it because it was exactly the right size for a painting.

Phil, at a loss of what else to do, covers the box in Adventure Time wrapping paper. He does a pretty poor job but that’s standard - their first Christmas together was spent mostly with Dan watching him, in abject horror, as he attempted to wrap all his presents in an afternoon, sellotape in his hair, never quite able to get the paper to join, leaving huge gaps. Saying “but it’s _endearing_ ” after every one that Dan incredulously held up. 

(Dan wraps presents like a mathematical experiment, measuring out each piece exactly. “Phil, it’s like an exploding cube, you have to do this, and this” and Phil would try but still fail.)

The box ends up being more sellotape than wrapping paper but it’s covered and that’s the main thing (something he said to Dan a lot, that Christmas). He hides it back under the bed.

( _I’ll remember this for next year_ Dan said, staring at Phil’s pile of presents. _Your terrible wrapping skills. I’ll just do them all from both of us_ and Phil had beamed at him, at the thought of next year, next Christmas, joint presents.)

~*~

The best day to do it ends up being the following day; when Mark has to, mysteriously, go to “an appointment” and Dan gets called to the school because of some kind of incident that Phil can’t really follow but involves Dan saying “I _told_ her not to try the Chopin” and huffing a lot.

Phil says “I’ll meet you. At the school” as Dan’s leaving. “Don’t worry if I’m late though.” 

Dan is apparently now speaking to the child in question, in his most soothing face. He says “Chloe, we talked about Fantasie Impromptu, remember, it’s a bit…...advanced,” he salutes Phil as he closes the door. “I didn’t mean it’s too difficult for you, I just-” 

Phil attempts to wear his plainest clothes, but then realises that such a thing doesn’t exist. Everything he owns is bright and covered in print. At least 80% of his wardrobe has woodland animals on it (or dinosaurs). In desperation he goes to Dan’s side of the closet, the neat rows of all black everything, and steals a plain sweater (that probably cost more than every shirt he owns put together). 

On the tube someone says “wow, someone’s lucky” and nods at the parcel.

Phil has a moment of complete blind panic where he tries to work out where the emergency cord is, how far they are from the next stop, how quickly he could feasibly make it off the platform, but then remembers that, of course, the parcel is covered in wrapping paper. By which time he’s left it far too long to reply without being awkward so they both just leave the comment hanging in the air.

~*~

The gallery looks like it should be on a postcard. Or one of those Pretty London Instagram accounts. The ticket costs exactly £1 and he’s the only visitor. And he’s carrying a huge painting shaped parcel. The whole thing couldn’t be more conspicuous. Once he’s inside he has no clue what to do.

The three rooms that are occupied have about five pieces each, spread out to the point that they’re in completely opposite corners, overwhelmed by the space around them. Phil does desperate laps, looking to the ceiling, the floor, like he’s looking for clues. Clues to what, who knows. There are no security cameras, but there are wires where maybe there were cameras once. 

The only other person in the entire building is the owner, Dean, who was working the ticket desk (or: sitting at the desk and playing on his phone) and looked completely startled to see another human being, to the point where Phil had asked “wait, are you open?” and Dean had genuinely had to think before he said “yes” and then couldn’t find the ticket stubs. Phil thinks he might be the only visitor this week. This month. 

Dean is currently following Phil around each room. He’s attempting to be stealthy about it, ducking out of the doorway every time Phil looks around, but, for once, Phil’s ex security guard instincts are working. He acts like he’s incredibly interested in every piece, stands and considers every sculpture for about ten minutes, trying to ignore Dean creeping in the doorway.

His hands tighten around the parcel so hard that he’s sure he tears the paper in multiple places. He can hear Jack saying _dump and run_ in his head and starts the motion more than once, lacking the courage to actually go through with it. 

Dean, finally, on Phil’s fourth lap of room two, says “aw, come on.”

Phil, startled, jumps about two inches off the floor, says “what?”

“I know what’s in the box.”

“What? I mean, nothing. Nothing’s in the box.”

Dean is smiling. It looks like a genuine smile too, like they’re two friends chatting over dinner. “You’re from Felix? You want to show me it’s still around? Never had it wrapped up before. And he usually sends the American guy.”

Phil says “ _what?_ ”

Dean’s smile gets wider, with an air of desperation. “You’re not here to confirm another year?”

“Another year of _what_?” Phil says. “I’m bringing it back to you.”

Dean stays smiling for a second, like the smile has snagged on something and is weakly clinging on. He says “no, take it back” through gritted teeth. 

Phil, in astonishment, says “what?”

“Take it _back_.”

“But, you’ve been looking for it. I read what you said. You _said_ that -” Phil holds the parcel out to him, presents it. “It got stolen from you.”

Dean actually takes a step back. “I don’t want it back. Wherever you got it from just…...return it.”

“But that’s what I’m _doing_ ”

Dean says “this isn’t the usual procedure. I haven’t even seen you before. What’s going on?”

Phil says “how can you not want it back? It’s _yours_ , you’ve been waiting for it. You said it _belongs_ here.”

“It _belongs_ somewhere else. Away from me.” Dean runs a hand over his face. “Fuck. This isn’t - you genuinely don’t know.”

There’s a lot of things Phil genuinely doesn’t know. He stays holding the painting out to Dean, like he’s proposing. And getting turned down. “I have to return it to you. I don’t know what happened before but I have to return it to you now.”

Dean says “I’ll phone the police” but makes no motion to do so. 

Phil lets the painting slip out of his hands (rather like his reading of this whole situation). It hits the floor and topples itself over, makes a loud crack as the frame hits the tiling. They both stare at it, lying face down, Phil’s terrible wrapping on show, and Phil says “but it’s -”

“Don’t say it’s _yours_ , or it _belongs_ here. Nothing _belongs_ anywhere.” 

“But you said you were waiting for it.”

Dean, finally, shouts a little. “Stop saying but I said. I know what I said. I haven’t been waiting. Why would I hang around and wait months for something?”

“If it was something that -”

“Nothing’s worth waiting that long for” Dean stares down at the parcel. “This isn’t what the agreement was. You need to tell Felix, I don’t know what he’s -”

“I’m leaving it here,” Phil states. He tries to be firm but the waver in his voice gives him away. He looks at the door, he has a clean run past Dean, then straight line out of the door. If he times it right. 

“You don’t know what you’ve done here. _Fuck_.” Dean actually kicks out at the parcel, boot causing another cracking sound. “You need to take it back and go,” he raises his foot, presumably to stamp. 

Phil takes the opportunity, says “I can do the second part of that” and runs, Converse squeaking over the tiled floor. 

Dean takes about five seconds to react, which gives Phil enough time to get into the courtyard, past the fountain and then out onto the main street.

He slips and falls on his way from the gallery, completely predictably and surprising absolutely no one. He instantly bounces back up, convinced that someone is chasing him, someone _must be_ chasing him, hobbles along for a few steps more, and finally turns to see precisely nothing.

~*~

He’s still short of breath when he gets to the school, circles of red flushed on his cheeks. Dan, sitting on one of the benches, looks genuinely startled at the sight of him.

“What have you been _doing_? And is that my jumper?”

“You mean one of the many identical black jumpers you own?” Phil’s wheezing a little. He sits down next to Dan.

“Have you been _running_?” 

“Did you sort out the Chopin emergency?”

Dan looks like he knows that Phil is changing the subject deliberately but goes with it. “No. She’s determined. Even though it’s way above her skill level and she cries the entire time.” He gives his widest eyes. “Phil, I can’t deal with it when they cry. You know that.”

“That’s because _you_ cry when they cry.”

“That’s because it’s sad as fuck.” Dan mimes playing an air piano, an expression of utter despair on his face. “Watching someone doing something that’s beyond them. But she won’t admit she’s in over her head, so…..Chopin.”

Phil hears sirens in the distance, as always in London, and flinches a little. “It’s hard sometimes, to admit you’re in over your head. She probably just wants to prove you wrong now.”

“It’s either admit it or keep going and have it end up horribly wrong.” Dan replies. “Either of those is going to end up with us both crying.”

“Hopefully not. I’m a really ugly crier."

“I meant me and Chloe.” Dan leans so their shoulders are knocking together. “Are you going to tell me why you were running?”

“Because I wanted to get to you.”

Dan’s face scrunches up like he’s not sure if that’s adorable or cheesy as heck. He appears to decide on somewhere in-between. 

**Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers, successfully returned.**

Phil isn’t entirely sure about the successfully but he texts Jack anyway.

~*~

(Chris, having met Dan for the first time in a really awful bar in Manchester, and then been dragged out the following morning for his thoughts, could only say “he seems nice Phil. And completely crazy about you, like you said.”

“I didn’t say crazy about me” but Phil had preened a little, at the thought of it.

“Isn’t this all moving too fast though? He’s basically living with you now.”

It wasn’t fast enough. Phil would, honestly, have gone anywhere Dan wanted to go, done anything Dan wanted to do. He said “I love him” even though he hadn’t said it to Dan yet.)

Phil is remembering this when Dan realises that the Degas is missing, tearing around the flat, looking under the beds, in all the cupboards. He stands in the middle of the kitchen watching him, all wide eyes when Dan finally tells him, says “what, it’s gone?” like this is a complete surprise. 

(Chris had said “well, are you planning on telling him that?”

“Of course, I tell him everything.”)

Phil says “I don’t know where it could be. When did you last see it?”

“The same time as the Monet” Dan pulls their sofa right away from the wall. “What if they got taken together? Do you think?”

“Probably” Phil replies. “Where was it going to? You should check again, see if there’s any articles.”

He’s lived most of the past two days in a state of constant alert, every knock and bang making him jump (difficult when they currently have Mark staying with them, given that he makes enough noise for eight people). But, two days and still no police. No hand on his shoulder as he’s walking to university. Not so much as a whisper.

“Oh, it was a weird one” Dan looks down the back of the sofa and sighs. “We don’t get many like -”

“ _Didn’t_ get.”

Dan leans back and looks at him. “What?”

“You said didn’t. Present tense.”

Dan says “oh. I didn’t realise.”

He looks incredibly grateful when Mark bundles into the room, having been searching through the guest bedrooms, and shouts (because Mark does nothing else) “it’s not there either.”

Phil wants to push it further, wants to ask about the present tense, but the moment sort of gets away from him as Mark lifts the entire sofa with one hand so Dan can look underneath it and says “hey, Phil, can you check the attic?”

Phil nods and proceeds to spend far too much time in their attic, for someone who already knows that what he’s looking for isn’t there.

~*~

The next day Felix comes to the flat, wearing all grey. Skinny jeans and hoodie. Judging by the surprise on Dan’s face Phil concludes that the lack of bright clashing colours isn’t a normal occurrence. It takes years off Felix, he looks younger than Phil. As young as Dan. His hair is soft and not slicked off his face.

Felix says “I just thought I’d call in. To check up.”

“To check up?”

“Yeah, just a little meeting. Seeing how things are going” he sits at the piano bench. “For an update.”

Dan says “I haven’t done anything yet. The Monet somehow got returned without me. And the Degas is missing.”

There have been no news articles about the Degas. No mention on the gallery website, Phil checks daily. It’s like it’s still missing. 

Felix, casually, says “oh, those. I took them.”

Dan and Phil both say “what?” at the same time, Phil can’t even hide the astonishment from his voice. Felix gives him an impatient look.

“Yeah, I took them. I mean, they’re easy enough so” he shrugs. “Whatever.”

“You _took_ them?”

“You were taking too long.”

Dan says “it’s literally not even been two weeks. Why wouldn’t you say that you’d taken them?”

“I’m saying it now” Felix isn’t looking at Dan, he’s looking at Phil. “Just helping you out. Doing it so you won’t have to.”

Dan says “what?”

“Getting it started” Felix is still looking at Phil. “But that’s fine now, I was just, you know, telling you about it. What’s next?”

Dan looks incredibly confused and says “the Matisse maybe? Either of the ones in the flat, I’m not -”

Felix says “great! Good talk, awesome to catch up. Tell Mark and said hi.” He jumps off the piano bench. 

This is normal Felix behaviour apparently so Dan appears to accept it and says “fine, okay. Let me know if I’m not going quick enough for you."

“Aw, Daniel. Pace was never your strong point. At this point I just accept it.” Felix taps Dan once on the tip of his nose and ambles out of the room. He stops in their doorway, and, over his shoulder, adds “oh, hey Phil! Don’t you have a class now? Walk with me.”

Phil blinks, says “no.”

Felix repeats, slowly, “hey Phil. Don’t you have a class now. An important one”, and actually rolls his eyes, a little. “We can walk there. Together.” 

Phil, finally catches on and says “oh, yes, I do!”

Dan, who memorises Phil’s class schedule, looks confused and like he wants to protest, but watches them both leave.

Felix waits until they’ve covered one flight of stairs before he says “so, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Felix says “it was an insurance job. The Degas. He’s devastated that it’s back. I’ll bet it ends up ‘stolen’ again before the end of the month” he does air quotes around stolen. “The policy was crazy, he got half a million just from the theft and then a couple of hundred grand for each year it was missing.”

Phil says “but he said he was looking for it. He said he’d never stop looking for it.”

“Looking for it!” Felix laughs, a sudden explosion. “Phil, he sends me a bottle of Cristal every Christmas just to say thanks for taking it. He never wanted it back. He called me this morning, completely freaking out. And I thought, Dan wouldn’t have been that obvious about it, an insurance job needs to be a dump and run, so I got him to describe the person who brought it back” he gives Phil a long look. “And it was you.”

“But the -”

“The whole thing of keeping the room empty was just for sympathy, makes a good narrative.”

“A good _narrative_.” Phil repeats. 

“Yeah. Speaking of, why are you trying to include yourself in mine?”

“Include myself in what?”

“In the _narrative_.” Felix looks solemn. His voice suddenly is lower pitched, accent more pronounced, without the half American twang he uses when he’s being obnoxious. “I know you returned the Monet. I mean, as soon as I read the article I knew it couldn’t have been Dan, not with her suddenly deciding to show the collection. That had to be someone who’d actually spoken to her. Listened to her. Stayed with her. It made sense, when I spoke to Dean. What are you trying to do?”

“I’m keeping Dan.” Phil replies. Keeping Dan safe. Keeping him home. Keeping him here. 

“There’s a lot that can go wrong Phil. You might be keeping him but what if he loses you?” Felix shakes his head. “Also, he’s good at what he does, he -”

“What he _did_.” Phil interjects. 

“What he’s _doing_. Right now.” Felix gives Phil a long look, Phil stops slouching and raises to his full height. “I mean, he’s not coming back from that, something happening to you. And I think he’d kill me. Literally.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be any need of that. Or, I hope not.”

Felix says “is someone helping you? Honestly, you can tell me.”

“I don’t need to tell you anything. I’m not doing this for you.”

Felix looks vaguely impressed, but like he can’t summon up the full genuine emotion. “I know whose list this is. I mean, you can tell me, but I’ve already worked it out.”

“Then why ask?”

“Jack has his own agenda, Phil. He’s not going to leave you in danger or anything, but he has his own agenda. It’s important that you know that.” Felix’s voice is so normal it doesn’t even sound like him.

“I don’t think I’m naive as you think I am.”

Felix raises an eyebrow.

“Except I probably am.”

They’ve made it to the front door of the building. Felix reaches out and attempts to clap Phil on the shoulder but it turns into more of a pat. It’s obviously meant to be comforting, and he immediately ruins it by saying “Dan is going to be so angry when he finds out.”

“He’s not going to.”

Felix leaves his hand clasping Phil’s shoulder. “Maybe not. He has a huge blindspot when it comes to you. Which you obviously know.”

Phil says, “don’t make it sound like that. I’m not…..taking advantage of that. I just, I want him here. I want him to stay _here_.”

Felix gives him a pained look, like this conversation has got far too deep and emotional for him. He pats Phil’s shoulder, awkwardly. “You mean, you want him to _stay_. That’s all.”

Phil nods. 

“Philip” Felix says. “I think that’s what you _both_ want” then “I’m not covering for you again.” 

Felix chooses this as his parting words and saunters out of the front door. Phil spends a few minutes in the entrance of their building, not knowing whether to commit fully to the lie or not, before he finally goes back upstairs.

~*~

Phil, in _another_ awful City pub, says “seriously, an insurance job?”

Jack, cheerfully, replies “I know right!”

“You couldn’t have told me that before?”

“Spoils the element of surprise, I feel.”

“He doesn’t even want it back!”

“Well, sometimes, Phil, if you wait for something for too long -”

Phil says “stop.” 

Jack does not stop. “The waiting becomes more enjoyable than the actual _thing_. I think you reach the point where you don’t want it, you’d rather just go through the motions of acting like you do. And when you get it back, maybe it’s not like you remember.”

Phil says “stop.”

“Maybe it was okay without you, you know?”

“ _Stop_ ”

Jack does. “The Matisse is in Paris.”

“I know.”

“You’re getting ahead of me” Jack raises an eyebrow. “Are you doing _research_?”

“I asked Mark” Phil replies. It’s slightly mean, but he says it purely to judge Jack’s reaction (which is a small flinch, a shift in his seat). “And he told me.” 

(Mark had, eventually, after being convinced that Dan would be okay with Phil knowing it, and even then he’d only given Phil five guesses at cities, because apparently _that doesn’t count as me telling you_.)

Jack says “oh” and “I wouldn’t tell Mark what you’re doing. He worries too much, he’ll tell Dan straight away. Or he’ll insist on going everywhere with you.” He sounds fond, speaking from personal experience.

“I won’t. I’m like you, working alone.”

“I didn’t _always_ work alone” Jack replies. His voice, again, is different; like it’s his real voice and the other, loud, one is what he puts on for show. “I worked in a pair. Sometimes.”

“With Mark?”

Jack looks at him, then smirks, tone back to maximum volume. “Nice try Phil. We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. And Paris. How are you intending to explain that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d get thinking about a cover story, if I were you. A good one.”

~*~

On Wednesday he comes home from class early to find Mark in their living room, hunched over their coffee table. He has two suitcases and is working through a pile of documents. There are two passports lying to one side. One is American, one is British. The guilt on his face answers Phil’s question before he even asks it.

Not that he actually asks it. He just says “oh” in a very accepting, flat way.

Mark says “Phil. I can explain. It’s not _now_ , it’s just prep. Dan wanted to tell you. I don’t-”

He possibly says something else. Phil doesn’t hear it as he’s already halfway out of their front door.

~*~

Phil has a free pass to the Tate, a lifetime one. He can get anything he wants in the gift shop and order one of everything in the coffee shop. Not that he ever has. He feels guilty even using the pass, given that it’s completely and utterly undeserved.

The ticket clerk, who has the white blond hair of an anime character, standing horizontal from his forehead, blinks at him from behind dark rimmed glasses and says “don’t you have a pass?”

“No, I don’t” 

The clerk’s name-tag says Tyler. Phil thinks that he should remember that, from somewhere. “You definitely do. You don’t have to pay for a ticket, seriously.”

“But I want to.” Phil feels slightly hysterical, he can feel that he’s flushed. He puts a twenty pound note on the counter. “Here you go.”

“That’s enough for three tickets,” the clerk looks concerned. “Are you okay Phil?”

Phil says “what?”

“I said, are you okay?”

Phil takes his three tickets and leaves.

~*~

Phil’s standing where Llama in Meadow used to be when Dan appears. He’s wearing three layers of sweaters, one of Phil’s scarves (blue and far brighter than anything Dan usually wears) and gloves that don’t match.

Phil wants to take him home, to stay at home with him for at least a month, they could build a nest and hibernate. 

Dan says “Phil” and he sounds worried.

Phil says “how did you know I was here?” then “wait, should _you_ be here?”

“Someone let me know.” Dan replies. “And no, not really. It’s not the best idea.”

“Then why -”

“I didn’t want you to find out like that. Mark feels awful about it, but he shouldn’t….. I wanted to tell you.”

Phil says “look, the llama’s gone.”

The llama is gone but there’s another painting in its place, another Brigitta Palmarsdottir. This one is a lion; cross eyed and with a mane that looks like it has a middle parting, given that it seems to stop on the top of his head. He’s smiling, bigger on one side than the other, and his paws are crossed, like he’s dancing. 

The painting is called Lion in Orchard, even though Phil can see no evidence of an orchard anywhere, other than something to the right that could be a tree. Potentially:

Brigitta Palmarsdottir is an Icelandic artist from Akureyri. She painted Lion in Orchard as a thank you to this gallery, to show her gratitude for the efforts of security staff in saving her piece, Llama in Meadow, from an attempted theft in the summer of 2015. The lion, painted outside of its usual comfort zone of the jungle, is intended to represent a rescue, possibly of Palmarsdottir’s own painting, as shown by the hidden llama, in the left of the frame. Brigitta will always be grateful to the Tate and hopes to show more of her work here in the future. 

Phil can’t see the llama, no matter how hard he looks. 

Dan says “it’s there, look” and tries to show him. 

Phil shakes his head, frustrated. “I thought that was a tree. What does it mean if you can’t see it?”

“I don’t think it means anything Phil.” Dan says. He repeats “I didn’t want you to find out like that.”

“What painting is it?”

“The Piano Lesson. It’s not next on my list but I mean, it’s in the flat and I want it gone, so -”

Of course it’s the Matisse. Of course. 

“You had a Steinway. Before.”

Dan gives him a surprised look. “I’ve told you that. I _must_ have told you that.”

“I don’t think so.” Phil replies. “Because, if you had, why would I have felt so good about giving you the Ophelia piano? It doesn’t really compete, does it.”

“It doesn’t.” Dan replies. “Because it was from you. It beats a hundred Steinways. An exhibition of them.”

~*~

Dan said I love you, the first time, with the same ease that he always would, in the early hours of the morning, when Phil asked him to move to London; the kind of sleep morning conversation that Phil was never sure if he’d dreamt or not.

Somewhere into the next day he said “what you said last night.”

Dan said “what _we_ said last night” because Phil had said it back.

“Did you mean it?”

Dan gave him an odd look. “Of course I did.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m serious.”

Phil had wanted to say why? Why me, have you _seen_ you? (which he’d said before and never went well, would say numerous times into the future and get the same reaction), and so he said “seriously?”

“Phil.”

“You _love_ me?”

“I believe that’s what I said, yes.” Dan looked at him, under his lashes. “Also I think you said you love me, somewhere in there.”

Phil said, “I do. So much. I’m happiest when I’m around you. I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

“That’s a pretty long way to say I love you. I mean, if that’s how we’re going to do it every time.”

“I don’t care. I’ll say it all, every time.”

~*~

Broken down, it was, is, and always will be the three things that Phil is surest of.  
1\. He loves Dan.  
2\. He is happiest when he’s around Dan.  
3\. He doesn’t want to be anywhere Dan is not.

And reversed.  
1\. Dan loves him.  
2\. He makes Dan happy.  
3\. Dan doesn’t want to be anywhere Phil is not.

And combined. Phil says “we love each other. We make each other happy. We don’t want to be anywhere without each other.”

Dan says “yes” instantly. “Yes to all of those things.”

“Then I’ll come with you. To Paris.”

“How do you know it’s Paris?”

Phil, unable to think on his feet, desperately says “I researched it.”

Dan says “ _why_? I don’t want you researching it, I don’t want you involved at all. And I definitely don’t want you to come to Paris.”

“I’m coming to Paris.”

“I don’t want you -”

“I’m _coming_ to Paris.” Phil repeats. “What exactly am I meant to do without you?”

Dan, aiming for a light tone, says “I don’t know. Eat all my cereal? Delete everything I’ve recorded? Fill the entire flat with plants?”

Phil says “I’ll be scared, everyday. That you’re not coming back.”

“Why would I _not_ come back?”

“What if you remember everything you liked about it?” Phil says. “What if it’s the Steinway, and I’m just some piano that we got given by the Tate?”

Dan, completely confused, says “what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“We’re going back to having the same conversation over and over. Like we were before” Dan says. “You must know me better than that by now, we’ve been…...we’ve been together for a year. Over a year. You can’t seriously think I’m going to do a few more jobs and just -”

“I do.” Phil replies. “I do seriously think.”

Dan gives him a long, sad look. It’s like looking at him in Manchester, one of the many occasions where Phil would glance up and see Dan staring at him, like someone is about to come and swoop Phil away. Like they’re halfway through an argument that Phil didn’t know they were having. Phil always felt slightly awkward under that look, like he’s undeserving of such attention. He fidgets on the spot, doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

Dan says, finally, “if you come with us, you have to stay in the hotel when I tell you to, okay? You can come with us but you’re not coming anywhere near the actual job. And if it goes wrong -”

“It won’t go wrong.”

“If it goes wrong then you leave without me.”

Phil says “wait, what?”

“I’m not letting you come unless you promise that.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Dan looks completely serious. Deadly serious. He says “Phil.”

“You want me to _leave_ you?”

“If it goes wrong, yes. Promise.”

Phil says “I promise” like he’s pulling the words out of his chest, from his heart. 

Dan nods at him, satisfied.

~*~

At some point, standing in a basement in Manchester, looking at Dan, who was in the middle of stealing a Van Gogh that Phil had promised to look after, it all made sense. Perfect, crystal clear, sense. Like the whole three months had led up to this; the moment where Dan would leave because how could Phil keep him, really?

Phil had said _was it ever real, us, was it ever_ like he was holding out pieces of his heart, offering them to Dan, because that was his real name, _Dan_ , and Phil said _I knew that you were too - look at you_ , and Dan had stared back at him the whole time, like he was watching a horrible movie that he somehow couldn’t pause. 

He’d let Dan (and the Van Gogh) out of the basement because he loved him. Love wasn’t even a big enough word for it. If Dan had said _come with me_ Phil would have dropped everything and gone, but then Dan didn’t say it so he stayed, in Manchester, in the front room of his flat, too scared to look away from the street in case he missed the one second where Dan decided to come back. 

Being with Dan is like not wearing his glasses or contacts and only having one thing in focus. Like the rest of the world is a hazy mass of colours and shapes and there, in the centre, is Dan. In perfect definition. Without him everything seems like a huge blur of nothingness. 

Phil had lived through a few months of that, the nothingness, he’s not prepared to do that again.

~*~

In the flat, later, Mark having just given an apology that was all puppy dog eyes and hand wringing, Phil says “it’s fine. I’m coming with you.”

Mark blinks, looks at Dan. “Really?”

Jack, replying to Phil’s text, says _that’s a stupid idea check with me before you do anything like that again._

And, five seconds later, _he’ll find out how are you supposed to get it past him and m?_

_this is a difficult one you’re not ready and why are you making it harder for yourself._

Dan says “really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- All the facts about Degas are true (and there is actually worse that I could have included). Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers actually resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
> 
> \- And shoutout to the odd case of Steven Cooperman, a doctor who faked the theft of his own Picasso to get a $17 million dollar insurance payment and so inspired the case in this chapter.
> 
> \- (my google search history makes for interesting reading because of this fic, ngl)


	5. 3. the piano lesson - henri matisse

On Monday he actually opens the WhatsApp group he has with a group of other students from his course for the first time in weeks and understands nothing that they’re talking about.

One of them, Jack (another Jack, except this one wears tortoise shell patterned glasses with plain glass, and dresses like he could stand in the window display of All Saints and no one would notice) messages him directly: _hey Phil, is everything okay? You’ve been really quiet in the group lately._

(a quick scroll back shows that Phil actually started the group, and most of the discussions therein) - he replies to Editing Jack and says _yeah, just pretty busy outside of class at the moment_

 _I get that_ Jack replies. _There’s still plenty of time to work on the assignment though._

_yeah, of course. Loads of time._

At his next seminar he approaches the tutor and says “uh, is it possible that I could get given the information about the assignment again?”

The tutor blinks at him. “Again? Have you lost your copy?”

Phil says “yes” because it’s easier than admitting that you don’t even remember getting given it in the first place. 

“I’ll forward it to you again” as Phil turns to go he says “is everything alright Philip? You’ve seemed distracted these past few weeks. You’re normally so…..vocal in classes.” He does a little wavy hand motion which is a pretty good imitation of what Phil usually does when he’s excited and talking about editing.

“Oh, it’s fine. Just - a lot going on outside. At the moment.”

“I can give you an application for extenuating circumstances. Whatever it is, just to give you more time.”

Phil isn’t sure how he would even begin writing an application for that. _I require extra time on my assignment as I’m currently secretly un-stealing artwork so that my boyfriend doesn’t have to_. He says “thank you, but I’m not sure I’ll need it.”

“I think you’ll like the assignment. It plays to your strengths, playing with timelines and perceptions. You know, taking out the bad, making a positive out of a negative.”

“I’m starting to think it’s better to leave the negative in.”

“Well, that’s something you can think about. And also, think about that application. Whatever the situation is, I’m sure we can help.”

Phil says “thank you” again and “I actually won’t be in class for the next two weeks. I’m going away on, uh, business, I guess. Urgent business.”

The tutor frowns at him. “But next week is the start of the practical feedback. We’ll be talking about audio engineering, it’s a lot for -”

“I’m sorry. I’ll have to catch up.”

“It’s a lot to catch up on, Philip.”

Being called Philip takes Phil straight back to his childhood, the curt tone of teachers telling him to stop daydreaming, his mother saying it, _Philip_ , after three attempts of him not hearing. He automatically bows his head against his full name and says, again, “I’m sorry. But I will catch up, I promise.”

The tutor sighs. “Where are you going exactly?”

“Paris.”

“Oh. The city of love.” The tutor raises his eyebrows, making it pretty clear on what he thinks the urgent business is. 

Phil says “is it?” casually and makes his exit from the room. 

Dan is waiting outside, in a light charcoal denim jacket that’s not suitable for the weather at all, his cheeks flushed red with cold. As Phil troops down the steps towards him he hears his tutor, from behind him, “I’ll send you the form about getting more time on the assignment”, loud enough for Dan to hear.

Dan says “what was that?”

Phil says “why aren’t you wearing one of your fifty black coats? Aren’t you freezing?”

Dan repeats “what was that?”

Phil repeats “aren’t you freezing?”

“ _Phil_.”

“Nothing, I just told him we’re going to Paris and so I’d be missing class for the next two weeks.”

Dan, still completely in denial about this fact, says “oh, right. I mean, you shouldn’t be missing your classes or anything, I don’t -”

“It’s fine. It’s editing, I’m good at it.” He has to admit to himself that this extends beyond class to his actual real life, the editing. He creates the scene cut himself, abruptly changes the subject, “maybe we could take a trip when all this is over? Back to Japan?”

Dan smiles, in a way that is genuine and also completely aware of Phil’s diversion tactics. “Maybe we could. When all this is over.” He looks happy that Phil said so, that he can actually see an _over_. “We could go a couple of other places. Wherever you want to go.”

Sometimes the only place Phil really wants to go is back to his flat in Manchester, to the exact months that he and Dan were together, a hazy three months that seems almost like a dream now, when he knew nothing about anything and Dan was Dan but not Dan, and all his secrets were still hidden. 

He’is trying to prepare himself for _when all this is over_. Actually over. He can hear whispers from Dan and Mark (mostly Mark because whispering is impossible for him), in the living room when Phil’s acted like he’s going to sleep. Mostly about how most of the others have finished their lists. _Jack’s done his_ Mark said. _He did his in, like, a week. It’s scary how good he is at this_. It seems that only Dan, PJ (who had an _issue in Barcelona_ ), Tyler and Louise have jobs left. 

Felix is phoning Dan a lot, tense little conversations that always take place on the balcony. Phil can only assume that the deadline is getting closer, the point where this person, the blackmailer, whoever he is, is starting to lose patience.

~*~

Phil hates The Piano Lesson. It’s one of those paintings where someone (ie Dan) has to actually stand beside you to explain what exactly is going on.

Dan, patiently, like he’s a tour guide, says “it’s Matisse’s son, at the piano. He painted two replicas of his earlier stuff in there too, that sculpture there at the bottom, and the painting in the top right.”

“Why not just paint an actual piano lesson. Properly?”

“Because that’s something anyone could do, I guess” Dan says. “I’m still not happy about -”

Phil interrupts “I know. I know you’re not.”

The Piano Lesson belongs to an elderly French woman who lives in The Latin Quarter. She was apparently gifted it by her husband who, Mark and Dan both seem to think, probably stole it from the Spanish foundation that were the original owners.

“Why are you assuming that he stole it?”

“You don’t just end up with an original Matisse” Dan says. “She was a music teacher, taught piano to kids and -”

“Like you”

Dan smiles. “Yeah, like me. But still, how would a piano teacher have this in their flat?”

Phil says “uh” and looks around their flat. 

“Either she stole it or he did. Or one of them bought it not realising it was real, that’s happened before. At markets and stuff” Mark pipes up. He sounds like he’s just behind them, but he’s actually two rooms away.

“Why would you _buy_ this?” Phil says. 

Dan says “harsh” softly, pulling at his sleeves. “He was pretty successful. They had some of stuff in the Tate, didn’t you see them? He painted a lot of flowers. And a really pretty painting called Open Window, which was my first job”

Phil tries to cast his mind back to when Dan has mentioned this before. “With PJ? The chateau?” he can’t remember the details. The original conversation had been had in the living room of his Islington flat, the first time they’d been alone, truly alone, together since Manchester, when he was still trying to recognise all of Dan’s mannerisms. “Is that the one?”

“Yeah. The private collector. They’re the worst. You’ve got to judge it right, when they’re not there, otherwise they’ll -”

“Catch you?”

“No, collectors always want to talk to you. To ask why you’re doing stuff and talk you out of it. Talking to them is always a really bad mistake.”

Phil thinks of Melody Carter and her pomeranians and says “oh. I see.”

“Not that you need to know anything about this” Dan shrugs. “I’m just rambling really.” 

Phil wonders, idly, if Melody Carter is okay. If he should check up on her, somehow. He can’t say that talking to her was a bad mistake, not really. 

“You’d be awful.” Dan continues, picking up the Matisse. “You speak to everyone.”

It’s true. Phil’s lost count of how many times he’s been in shops, parties, bars, on the train, having a conversation with a complete stranger (who maybe looked like they needed someone to talk to) while Dan, in the background, rolls his eyes and resists the urge to pull him anyway. Sometimes unsuccessfully. 

Phil says “yeah, I suppose I would be.”

~*~

The night before they leave they go out to dinner with Mark, faking that it’s a completely innocent visit and they’re just doing normal, touristy things, taking a friend out for a really expensive meal . Phil feels on edge, can’t even summon up a smile at his ridiculous cocktail and the platter of rose petals that, for some reason, accompanies it. Dan fidgets, pulls his fancy linen napkin through his fingers, folds and unfolds it.

Mark keeps up a relentless stream of chatter, which he doesn’t take a breath from, an earnest look on his face, like if he stops talking something terrible is going to happen, asking questions but not really waiting for the answers. He spends ten minutes talking about the wine list (“do you want chardonnay? I might want chardonnay. But we don’t have to have it. I mean, we could. Is that what you want? Maybe you’ll pick a meal that doesn’t go with it, you have to be careful with that, I -”)

Dan, finally, says “Mark, it’s okay. We’re all stressed. You don’t have to -”

“Stressed?” says Mark. “I’m not stressed. What’s there to be stressed about? It’s not like you’re on a _deadline_ or anything, it’s not like we’re taking _Phil_ to _Paris_ on a _job_. It’s not like that’s the _worst idea ever_ or _anything_ like that.”

“He’s staying in the hotel. The whole time. We’ve got an agreement.”

Phil says “I’m sat _right here_.”

The agreement had been made at some point on the walk from the university building to the tube. It was generous to call it an agreement as Phil, really, wasn’t entirely happy with any of it, but he had said yes to three things: that he will stay in the hotel in the evenings, where he will have a separate room to avoid any possible links if things go wrong; that he is absolutely not helping or coming on the job or even so much as looking at the painting once they get there. And that he will leave if Dan and/or Mark get caught. _But that won’t happen_ Dan had said, pink cheeked in his spring jacket. _I only ever got caught once. And you were there for that_. 

“An agreement?” Mark says. “Well, that’s _fine_ then.”

Dan makes a hole in his napkin, freezes for a second to see if the waiter’s spotted it, then finally drops his hands to his lap. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. It’s the first and only time.”

He’d said that too, as Phil had taken off his scarf and looped it around Dan’s neck. _This is the first and only time, Phil. I mean that. It’s only to show you that I’ll come back._

Phil goes to the bar between main and dessert, more to clear his head than anything else. He’s unsurprised to see Jack there, hair hidden under a cap, actually pretty nicely dressed, like he’s meeting someone. He isn’t sure if he should acknowledge him so he doesn’t, even though they end up right next to each other as Phil orders another Geisha Girl cocktail. Jack huffs a laugh under his breath when the rose petals appear but resolutely doesn’t make eye contact.

When he returns to the table Mark appears to have calmed down a little. Dan has a new napkin. Phil’s dessert has arrived, a single cube of dark chocolate cake and one raspberry, which he eats, in its entirety, in one bite. 

Dan says “we can get something on the way home.”

Mark is looking directly over Phil’s shoulder at the bar, a frown on his face, like he’s looking at something he’s not sure he’s actually seeing. Distractedly, he says “in Paris you can eat all the cake you want” which is, so far, the only positive thing anyone has said about this trip. 

“Seriously?” Dan says. “He’ll be on a complete sugar high the entire time.”

Phil piles his rose petals into his hand and, delicately, blows the whole collection of them right into Dan’s face. 

Dan says “thanks” and smiles a little.

A few petals catch in his hair, like they did under a cherry blossom tree in Japan. Phil doesn’t tell him. They stay twisted in Dan’s fringe until the wind outside catches them away.

~*~

“You look right together. As a couple.” Jack sounds surprised and out of breath, like he’s phoned Phil in the middle of a jog.

“You weren’t expecting us to?” Phil replies, caught off guard. 

“I don’t know. I mean, I know you. I knew Dan. As separate entities. I couldn’t picture you together. But then, Dan isn’t really as I remember him.” 

“In a good way?”

“In a really good way. I can see why you don’t want him to go back to doing the jobs again. He was so angsty before.” Jack coughs, slightly too close to the receiver. “But, I mean, I wasn’t there to watch you two or anything, I’m not, like, following you - Mark seemed happy though. Right?”

“Mark? Yeah, he’s always happy” Phil replies because having Mark in the flat, so far, is like having the golden retriever puppy that Dan said they couldn’t get. Making a lot of noise and waiting excitedly in the living room when they return from work. “I think he saw you. Yesterday.”

Jack ignores this, says. “We should meet. Properly. Before this whole stupid Paris trip thing.”

Phil says “sure. When?”

Jack sighs. “You shouldn’t agree to things so quickly, Phil. That’s how -”

“When?”

“I’ll be around tomorrow. I’ll text the place. I still think this is an epically bad idea.”

“Well, everyone does,” Phil replies.

“But _everyone_ probably isn’t 50% to blame for the situation, like I am..” Jack doesn’t quite sound like he’s regretful but it’s close. Near the edge. “I’ll text you”. He hangs up, in usual conversation ending style, without so much as a goodbye.

~*~

At some point in the week Louise discovers that Phil is going to Paris. She sends Phil a very sweet text with a lot of French flags and _enjoy the bakeries! Bring me back some macaroons_ followed by a string of pink hearts. Phil likes Louise; her floral tea dresses, how she smells like every branch of Lush that he’s ever been in. He wishes that she lived nearer, being in her company relaxes him somehow (again, like most branches of Lush). It makes him anxious that she, apparently, hasn’t finished her list, that she could be in potential danger too.

Louise doesn’t send Dan a nice text. She phones him and is so loud that Dan actually takes his phone out of the flat, takes the call in their main hallway. Phil had just enough time to hear her usually calm, soothing voice yell “what are you thinking? This is such a stupid idea” before Dan had made a swift exit. 

Of all of Dan’s friends, his ex-colleagues if they can be called that, Louise is the one that confuses Phil. He has no idea how such a sweet person ended up involved in stealing artworks, how one day she decided that it was something that she wanted to do. 

But to question that is also to admit that he sees something in Dan which explains why _he_ did. And that’s a thought that he immediately cuts from his mind.

~*~

They meet in the All Bar One on Regent Street. Jack had obviously picked it because he thought it would be busy, except it’s really not. There are three other tables, all with couples on very awkward looking dates, no one speaking to each other, all playing on their phones. Jack is huddled on a table in the corner, already two drinks in. Phil sits opposite, hoisting himself onto a stool which is so high that his feet don’t reach the ground.

Jack, by way of introduction, says “I’m coming with you. Not _with_ you but, I’ll be there. I’ve come up with a whole idea about how to do it.” He’s oddly on edge, fidgeting in his seat, the volume of his voice changing rapidly. “I just - it worries me. You have to promise that you’ll go in and then straight out. Don’t get into a conversation if she’s there.”

Phil says “okay.”

“No sitting and _talking_ , or getting them to ask you about your feelings or why you’re doing this or, you know, talking in metaphors about things being where they’re supposed to be. I _know_ what you’re like.”

Phil says “okay” again, orders a Strawberry BonBon (which, when it arrives, turns out to have candyfloss in it). “I understand.”

Jack says “Phil can I ask you something?” and then continues anyway. “You don’t know me. You know nothing about me, and yet you’ve only asked once why I’m helping you. _Once_. I call you, asking you to meet me, and you come, every time. By yourself. You don’t even question me. I’ve put you in two potentially dangerous situations and you just keep…...coming back. How trusting can one person be? How _naive_ can one person be?”

“I’ve never asked you,” Phil replies, flatly. “I’ve never asked you why you’re helping me.”

Jack stares at him. “Seriously.”

“Never. Not once. Are you having an attack of conscience or something? Because -”

“Do you want to ask me now?”

Phil blinks and in the process of doing so decides to take advantage of Jack’s unusually chatty mood. “Fine. Why are you helping me?”

“Because you were, like, _famous_ to us.”

“Us?”

“The other….” Jack waves his hand.

“Thieves?”

“I guess. Everyone of them has that dream Phil, it’s a lonely job. People were falling in love with tour guides, ticket clerks, shop assistants, collectors…..everyone, all over the place. Or vice versa. The dream, that they would see past you, that you could…...that -”

“Make it work?” Phil pulls at his sleeves. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Make it work, make it through the job with something to come home to afterwards, one last job and then maybe you can leave with him and move to Ohio and be happy for once.”

Phil says “ _Ohio_?” because he feels like this particular detail is important. 

“We’re similar Phil. Have I said that yet?”

“I don’t think so” Phil watches Jack drain his drink and says “are you talking about Mark? When you said -”

“Well, we are. Similar.”

“Did you meet Mark on a job?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“But we _are_. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.”

Jack meets his eyes, finally. “Yes Phil. I met Mark on a job.”

“While _he_ was on a job. But you weren’t.” Phil guesses. “That’s why we’re similar.”

Jack nods.

“Were you a security guard? Like me? Or were you -”

“That’s all the info you’re getting.” Jack starts tearing at the label of one of the discarded beer bottles. 

Phil says “no, you were a tour guide. I bet you were.”

Jack shrugs, noncommittally, “among other things.”

“So, you met Mark when he was on a job and, what, just got caught up in it and couldn’t stop? That’s not being similar.”

Jack says “really? If Dan had asked you to steal the Llama, would you have done it?”

Phil ignores the question. “Did Mark ask you to steal for him?”

Jack does the same. “I meant similar in some ways. Maybe I’m just trying to stop you from going the same way that I did. Because no one helped me.”

“You’re trying to stop me from turning into an art thief by helping me break into places and return paintings?”

“And your sense of self preservation is pretty poor” Jack continues, finally returning to his original train of thought. “Like I was saying. How instantly do you forgive people? Do you have a really low opinion of yourself, or just a really high one of Dan? Or both?”

“I don’t have a low opinion of myself.” Phil replies. He’s aware that this answers Jack’s question, in a roundabout way. 

Jack says “Madame Darbonne will be kind of tricky. She’s smart.”

The change of subject is so abrupt that Phil has to gather his senses, for a second. “I thought we were talking about -”

“I don’t know how she got that painting but she did it somehow. I always kinda thought that she’d paid for someone to get it for her, but then they wanted it for themselves.”

Phil says “Felix.”

“I didn’t say that. _You_ did” Jack gestures for another round. “That’s what worries me. She has, I don’t know, insider knowledge. You have to be there when she’s not, but - I’d do it myself, I really would, but she knows me. They all do. This whole list.”

“Why, did you stay and speak to them?”

Jack gives him a sad look, again suddenly taking years off his age, casts his eyes down to the table. “I had a lot to talk about. Then.”

Phil takes pity on him. “I won’t speak to her.”

“You say that now” their drinks are brought to the table. “But, you’re obviously a bit of a sucker for a sad face. That’s the exact reason why we’re sitting here.”

~*~

They’re leaving the bar, Phil feeling slightly drunk and also emotionally exhausted. Jack appears to be the same, he pats Phil’s arm and leaves his hand there, in an almost caring way.

“ _The_ painting,” he says. “Was New York Movie.”

“What do you mean _the_ painting?”

“The one from the job. Mark’s job.”

“But it’s on _your_ list.”

Jack raises his eyebrows. “So it is.”

“So it was Mark’s job but you stole it?”

He’s expecting Jack to dodge the answer, again, but he actually just says “yes.”

“And what happened after that?”

“The complete opposite of what I wanted to happen. You can work the rest out for yourself” Jack shrugs, pats Phil’s arm again. “I’ll find you, in Paris. I didn’t mean for that to sound threatening but it kinda is.”

Phil says “okay. I’ll wait to be found.”

He stands and watches Jack walk away from him and, again, cannot identify the exact second where he loses him in the crowd. One moment he’s there, and the next completely gone. Which is rather like the glimpses of, what Phil assumes, is Jack’s real personality, under the bravado and loudness. The flashes of his real expression, young and wide eyed under the green flick of his fringe.

~*~

Paris is grey and not at all as romantic as Phil was expecting. He’s tired and cranky, following a train journey where Mark, still trying to keep the mood up, had produced a never-ending pile of travel games, all seemingly designed as distraction tactics for the huge box stamped with Shakespeare & Company that Dan is telling everyone is a collection of books (the receptionist at their hotel had looked wide eyed and said “is a lot of books?”)

Dan regrets the separate rooms. Phil can tell. They’re an entire floor apart, which is the furthest they’ve slept from each other since in nine months. The receptionist, identifying them as a couple straight away (Dan standing with his hand on the small of Phil’s back, even though he’d said it was important that they weren’t obvious), had given them a very confused look as she handed over the separate keycards, eyes flashing between them like she couldn’t read the situation properly. 

Phil’s room is directly below Dan’s. He could stand on the bed and touch his hand to the ceiling while Dan pressed his to the floor above. “I’ll tap morse code to you,” he says. “Later.”

“You don’t even know morse code.” Dan says, standing in the doorway of Phil’s room. 

“And you do?”

Dan looks at the floor. “I learnt it for a job” - in the silence that follows he says “we’re going to do it tomorrow evening, me and Mark. We’re running out of time so it needs to be quick.”

“Running out of time before what?”

“We’ll be out all day, just for preperation and working out logistics. I’ll come back for the painting but I won’t come to see you until it’s done. I don’t want them to see me going to your room or whatever if something goes wrong.”

Phil says, weakly, “what about me coming to your room?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea” Dan says. 

“Why?”

“Because once I see you I’ll never actually go on the job” Dan sighs. “This _was_ an awful idea. Everyone was right. But, I’ll come to your room as soon as it’s done, the _instant_ that it’s done, just to so you can see that I’m actually coming back.”

Phil says “what about tonight? Can I come to your room tonight?”

Dan smiles at him. “You’d have to sneak up, I suppose. If you can do that.”

It turns out that he can.

~*~

Mark and Dan are gone by 8am. Phil can only imagine how chipper Dan was to be up before 10am. He’d insisted that Phil go back to his own room _just in case_ so Phil wakes up alone, has breakfast alone, for the first time in a long time. He’d forgotten quite how lonely it is, to eat cereal without someone else arguing that the show you’ve selected isn’t _really a morning anime, Phil. I’m picking tomorrow_ , without arguing about who gets what mug for their coffee.

He waits until lunchtime before he goes to reception, waits until the girl from last night is free, casually saunters up to the desk with a paper cup of (awful) coffee in his hand, like he has all the time in the world. 

Phil says “uh, my boyfriend, I -”

She nearly launches herself over the desk. “I knew! Why the separate rooms?”

Phil gives her a sad look. “It’s a long story.”

She, genuinely, clutches her hands to her heart. 

“I need to get into his room, he forgot the books. And he’s, uh, panicking. He needs them for something - I have to get them to him.”

She has the keycard in her hand before he’s even finished speaking. 

Dan’s room is already Dan’s Room, even if Dan has only been there for a matter of hours. Clothes strewn everywhere, small black piles, like he had to rush pack and just emptied half of his side of the wardrobe into a suitcase (which is normally how Dan packs for trips). 

Phil locates the box, under three pairs of identical black jeans, hidden from sight unless you’re looking for it, and says “thank you so much. He’ll be so happy”. For some reason he adds “merci” in a terrible accent. 

The receptionist is kind enough not to wince and says “you’re a good boyfriend. To take that into the city for him.”

Phil says “I suppose” without thinking about the ways that this makes him not a good boyfriend, really. 

He texts Jack to say _got it. You are actually in Paris, right?_

Jack sends the sunglasses emoji and _pick you up at 7 send me the hotel name_.

He texts Dan _going to go out for food tonight, maybe to the louvre. Just in case you come back and I’m not there_. He doesn’t know why, as Dan obviously isn’t intending on coming to his room until later, but he feels better for having given an explanation.

It’s only when Jack replies to say _remember a cover story for d say you’re going out or something_ that he realises that’s exactly what he’s done. Sold Dan a cover story. His others have been lies, thought up on the spot when Dan questioned him, but this is the first, actual, prepared cover story. 

Dan says _cool say hi to the mona lisa for me_

_never stole it, should specify that, none of those were us_

Phil replies _text me when it’s done_ even though Dan, unknowingly, has nothing to do. It just feels like something he would text, if this situation was actually happening the way Dan thinks it is.

~*~

The Latin Quarter is beautiful. Not that he can see much of it as Jack is driving at approximately 90 miles-an-hour, bouncing over the cobbles in a blue Mini he’d acquired from somewhere and is absolutely not engineered with someone of Phil’s height in mind . He’s saying “she’s at her bridge night, probably about two hours or so. I can’t park outside so I’m going to give you about thirty minutes and then I’ll come back around.”

Phil nods, holding the painting to his lap. 

“But sometimes she comes back early. As far as I can tell her bridge group gets kinda rowdy; they got thrown out of the bar last week.”

“Okay.”

When Jack pulls up he says “the building code is 102009. Her apartment is the top one with the roof garden. _Don’t_ get distracted by the roof garden. She has family in England, if anyone questions you, you’re one of them. Here’s her spare door key, post it back through the letterbox when you’re done.”

“How did you get her -”

Jack taps the side of his nose. “If she comes back early, or surprises you, then get the fuck out of Dodge, okay? Don’t speak to her.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it. Don’t talk to her. She’ll try and get you to sit down and have tea, don’t do it. Don’t let her get you into a conversation.”

“I won’t.”

“Twenty minutes and I’ll be back. I expect you to be waiting there.” Jack points to a lamppost in front of the building, one he’s parked a little too close to. “Right there.”

~*~

Madame Darbonne’s apartment is all floral everything. The carpet, the curtains, the sofa, the cushions, actual flowers in vases _everywhere_ , too many houseplants even for him. The scent is overpowering. There isn’t a spare centimetre of room to put the painting on so he swipes a scattering of bluebell throw cushions off a tulip printed chaise lounge and props it up there. He picks the cushions back up, tidies them around the box.

It goes wrong because he hesitates, looks through the glass panel doors to the garden. He can see flashes of colour, lots of reds and yellows, some blue scattered in there. There are markings all over the glass of the doors, smudges like someone’s been drawing on them. One looks like a sad face. He walks right up to it, traces a happy face beside it, resists the urge to add the extra details that he’d done last time. He wonders if Dan is back at the hotel yet, if he’s realised the painting is missing. 

(he said _don’t say I was in his room, if that’s okay. Just -” he panicked, couldn’t think of a lie. “I don’t want -”_

The receptionist said _I will not tell. I shouldn’t have let you in anyway. We can say that the cleaners brought it out by mistake, they do that with luggage sometimes._

Phil had blinked and thought that didn’t sound very secure, for a hotel, but then she’d smiled like they had a shared secret and he, desperately, had smiled back.)

He wonders if Dan has really believed every story Phil has spun him over this past month. Or if he’s just faking that he does, to both Phil and himself.

He hears a key rattle in the front door, then the door rattle as someone tries to open it. Then a rattle again, the successful click when it opens. When Madame Darbonne comes into the room she has tear tracks down her cheeks, mascara smeared under her eyes. Her cardigan is covered with sunflowers.

She freezes when she sees him.

Phil says “hello” and an awful “bonjour” because what else is there to say and “I was just going. Uh, I mean, je…..uh, voulais….no, wait….”

She notices the parcel and immediately bursts into tears; in an odd silent way, like she isn’t even aware of it.

“I’m sorry Ms Darbonne” Phil, for some reason, does an odd little bow and gingerly starts to step around her. “I mean, _pardon_. I should stop with the French, I’m sorry.”

“Open it then,” she says, in perfect English.

“Oh no, I’m just -”

“Just what, a delivery service? You could at least stay and open it.” Her bottom lip is trembling.

Get the fuck out of Dodge is what Phil thinks, looking at the marks on her cheeks where tears have marked her foundation.

“Okay,” is what he says.

~*~

Ten minutes later and she says “oh, you don’t like it?”

Phil, sat on a sofa, holding a tiny cup and saucer, wondering exactly how he’d ended up there, replies “uh, no. It’s not really my thing.”

“He was a master. Without Matisse there would be no Picasso,” she glances at him. “But then you probably don’t like Picasso either.”

“No, sorry."

“The son that he painted, Pierre, was an art dealer. He helped his clients escape occupied France and get to the United States. He held a huge exhibition there called Artists in Exile. Quite extraordinary.”

Phil looks at Pierre’s odd, asymmetrical face in the painting and says “yes.” 

Madame Darbonne tops up his cup with rum, rather than tea. Which explains the taste. “It’s maybe better to be in your line of work if you don’t appreciate art.”

“My line of work?”

“What kind of paintings do you like? What’s your favourite?”

Phil, immediately, says “The Sea at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer."

She looks surprised. “That’s an unusual one. I don’t think anyone has ever said that one. Why?”

“It’s…...important to me.” Phil sips his tea/rum, coughs a little when the alcohol hits his throat. 

“I see” she gives him a long look. “That got stolen, didn’t it? And returned. I read about it.”

Phil tries to look impassive. “I think so.” 

“Did you steal it?”

“Why would I have stolen it?”

“Because it’s your favourite,” she shrugs. “That’s why I did."

Phil says “what?”

“Everyone thought it was Aurelien. My husband." Her eyes well up again. “Poor man. I probably deserved to have it taken from me but things always find a way back, don’t you think? Or I suppose, you would know.”

Phil wonders how much rum he’s actually consumed. “I’m not sure what you -”

“You know exactly.”

“You stole it. Or had it stolen.” Phil says. Jack’s voice is an echo in his head, _get the hell out of there_ , but he can’t see anything wrong really, with Madame Darbonne. She’s just a sweet old lady in a floral cardigan. 

(and she’d been crying. That had done it for him really.)

“Yes,” she says, dabbing underneath her eyes with a handkerchief that instantly stains black. 

“Because it’s your favourite.”

“Why else would I have wanted it?” she looks genuinely confused. “Why would you steal something you don’t love? Not that I did the actual -”

“That makes sense if you’re only stealing one thing.”

“Or if you love a lot of things.” Madame Darbonne agrees. “I saw it at a private showing, a dealer in Spain showing his own collection, he said it was the ugliest painting that he owned and I knew I had to have it. How could anyone call this ugly?”

Phil blinks at the painting and says “I don’t know?”

She gives the painting a look of adoration and says “we had a lot of time together, I suppose. Everything ends”. She leans forward towards Phil, like they’re ladies gossiping at lunch, “do you know, I used to pretend that it was mine. Actually mine. That I’d bought it at an auction and walked out with everyone looking, jealous of me. I wanted to be that person so badly but, you cannot sustain dreams. Not really. You can’t make things something they’re not.”

Phil says “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You returned it to me and now I must do the right thing,” she shrugs. “If that’s actually your role here. You’re not going to arrest me or anything, are you?”

“No!” 

“I thought not. You’re not imposing enough to be a police officer.”

Phil says “I was a security guard once.”

“I can’t imagine you were a terribly imposing security guard either.” Madame Darbonne pours more rum into his cup. “You’re too sweet a boy to be caught up in all this nonsense.”

“It’s not permanent. I’m just helping.”

“Helping who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Someone you care about?” from Phil’s look she adds “I hope that she’s grateful.”

“He doesn’t know.”

~*~

Phil says “can I see your garden?” because it’s suddenly the only thing he wants to see and so they go out onto the rooftop. _Don’t get distracted by the garden_ Jack says. It’s the most beautiful garden he’s ever seen; begonias, poppies, pansies, violets, all thriving even in the cold weather. Purples, reds, blues, flashes of pinks. He’s aware that his twenty minutes must be over, very much over, that he hasn’t stuck to the plan at all.

Madame Darbonne, watching him give the poppies an adoring look, says “you have a garden?”

“Nothing like this. And I can never get anything to grow.”

“It’s just timing sometimes.” They both gaze out over the twinkling gold lights of Paris and she says “the boy, that you’re helping, I’m assuming that he’s your -”

“Boyfriend?” Phil supplies. “Yes. He is.”

“And he’s worth this? Putting yourself in danger?”

Phil says “yes.”

She turns to him, Paris streetlights bouncing off her jewellery, and says “why?”

The simplicity of the question blindsides him, he stares at her for a second, mouth (probably) half open. He swallows and says “I love him.”

“Why?”

Phil has a million answers to this. Because I love seeing him smile and knowing that I did that. Because I love watching him at piano recitals. Because I can see who he really is, because he came back, because he returned the Van Gogh, and returning the Van Gogh was like returning a piece of his heart really, and then he gave me the choice to go, even though I might not have come back, because I can see all the parts that no one else sees.

What he actually says is “because I was the one to make him stay. Because he shows me the real him.”

Madame Darbonne says “that’s a confusing answer.”

Phil is about to agree when there’s a furious horn sound from the street below. A blue Mini, which Jack not so gracefully extracts himself from. He stands looking up at the apartment building, gesticulating wildly as if he can see Phil.

“Oh!” Madame Darbonne says. “That’s Pierre. He used to live in this building, he -” she stops. “Oh. I see.”

Phil doesn’t want to know what Jack’s French accent sounded like. “I’m sorry. Again. I’m really sorry.”

“Is he your boy? Because, I think he was in love with an American, while he was here. I know he was American because he had a very loud voice.”

“No, he’s not my boy. He’s helping me.” 

“He’s helping you, you’re helping someone else, I can’t keep up.”

Phil, for some unknown reason, leans forward and kisses her cheek. Maybe he’s slightly drunk on rum and violet fumes. She smells of some expensive perfume and reaches up to pat his face.

She says “I’m sorry for what’s going to happen. But it’s the right thing to do.”

Phil says “what?” and goes from being in over his head to being completely knocked off his feet, tipped upside down, the entire Marina Trench above and below him.

~*~

When Phil reaches the street he’s both tipsy and wearing a poppy in his shirt pocket. Jack looks at him and says “you spoke to her. I told you not to.”

“She cried.” Phil says. “She was sad.”

“She’s not _sad_ , she’s an incredibly smart woman who puts rum in her tea and tricks you into saying things” Jack casts a rueful look at the top flat. “I _told_ you not to speak to her. What did she say?”

Phil says “just, nothing really. I don’t know.”

Jack updates the notes with **the piano lesson, successfully returned** and says “Phil. My motivation for this one wasn’t exactly honorable.”

Phil says “I know. I’m really not as naive as you think I am.”

“No. You’re not” Jack, rummaging in his pockets, gives him an envelope. “This is for you. You might not need it yet, or ever, but I’m giving it to you just in case.”

Phil runs his hands over the paper and, feeling the shape inside, says “it’s a key. I mean, obviously. It’s a key.”

“Phil, my intentions for all of these jobs haven’t been honorable. It wasn’t my original plan, to help you. You were just a way to - but I do want to help you. That’s genuine. I’m not always a good person but, I can be. Sometimes.”

Phil says “I’m guessing your intention on this one was to see Mark. That’s why you came to Paris in the first place.”

Jack runs a hand over his face. “That’s why I found _you_ in the first place. All for Mark. Just, like, a never-ending list of stuff for Mark. Of me going, _look what I got for you_ , and him…...fuck.”

They get in the Mini, Phil sitting with his knees up at his chin. He says, mildly, “we can go for a coffee or something, if you want to talk about it.”

Jack looks at him. He says “that’s nice Phil” genuinely, “that’s a nice thing to say, but, I’ll just drop you off. If that’s alright. It’s not the greatest thing to talk about, from my point of view.”

~*~

Jack gets out of the car with him, for some odd reason, as if he thinks Phil is going to be unsteady on his feet. Phil, indignantly, says “I didn’t drink _that_ much.”

Neither of them notice Mark until he says “Jack.”

Phil, sobering up instantly, says “Mark” and he doesn’t feel shock, or fear, like he’d expected. He feels relief. 

Mark, stood outside their hotel, phone in hand, blinks between the two of them and says “what the hell is going on?”

Jack says “I can explain.” 

Mark says “please don’t tell me you have something to do with what’s missing from Dan’s room right now. And _please_ don’t tell me that Phil does.”

He says all of this to Phil, deliberately not looking at Jack. Phil, gives up all pretence, is almost grateful to be caught, and says “I’m doing it to help Dan, that’s the -”

“The other two, were they you too?” Mark’s eyes are wide. “Fuck, Phil. You can’t mess around with this. What are you thinking? That job was with one of Felix’s biggest clients” he, finally, turns to Jack “how could you let him do that?”

“She knows me,” Jack says, flatly. “Same as how she knows you.”

They stare at each other, Mark apparently seeing something in Jack’s face that makes him say “please tell me this isn’t for my benefit. I thought that had stopped, I thought -”

“It never _stopped_.”

“ - and _Phil_. How did you even find him? Why did you find him?”

Phil says “I’ve done three. Three jobs. The Monet, the Degas and the Matisse” like he’s a kid, presenting his progress to the class. Mark gives him a sad look, sadness mixed with some kind of horror.

Dan, from behind him, says “Phil.”

Which is when the fear finally hits him, an explosion in his heart.

~*~

Dan doesn’t say anything, the way upstairs. He taps away at his phone and once, from apparent muscle memory, grabs at Phil’s elbow when he nearly gets out of the lift on the wrong floor, but stays in complete silence.

When they get to Phil’s room Phil, helplessly, struggling with his key card, says “Dan.”

Dan snatches the card from his hand, opens the door on the first swipe. He says “Mark will take the train back with you tomorrow. I need to go on to Berlin. For the Waterhouse.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No. You won’t” Dan is clenching his jaw, so hard that Phil’s surprised that he can’t hear his teeth grinding. His hands are balled into fists, hidden in his sleeves. “We came back and the painting was gone. And _you_ were gone. And now it all seems so obvious."

“But I -”

“You kept saying that you were worried in case I didn’t come back. What exactly am I meant to do if _you_ don’t come back? Do I not get a say in that? At all?”

“I just didn’t want you to do it. I wanted to -” Phil finally steps inside the room. A hotel corridor isn’t exactly the best place for this conversation. 

Dan follows him, waits for the door to close before he says “but it’s what I _do_ , Phil. It’s a part of _me_. Maybe not a nice part, or maybe not a part that you like very much, but it’s me. You can’t edit it out. And I told you that it would be the last one, this list. What did you think was going to happen?” Dan keeps his arms firmly at his sides, which is completely out of character. “You said that we shouldn’t talk about it.”

“I think that was a mistake. Maybe. Dan, let me come with you. Please. Don’t go on your own. I -”

“How much class have you missed?”

Phil blinks and says “are we seriously talking about my post grad right now?”

“You don’t understand. You’ve missed all of that because you were returning paintings for me.”

“But I -”

“And you _lied_. More than once.”

“I didn’t want to. But I know that you wouldn’t be…..happy with it, and I -”

“ _Happy_ with it?” Dan looks incredulous. “ _Happy_ with it? You have no idea how…….how….I can’t -”

“How angry you are?”

Dan looks at him. “I’m not angry Phil. I’m just - I’m not angry with you. I understand what you were trying to do. I get it. Maybe I would have done the same thing. But, remember, I said to you…. I didn’t like the thought of you talking to Felix without me. And now, apparently, you’ve been running around with Jack returning paintings. What if something had happened to you?”

“Then it would have happened to me. And not you. That was the point, really. And nothing’s happened - it’s been fine. I’m getting okay at it."

Dan says “literally never say that again. Ever. How did Jack get involved? How do you even _know_ him?”

“He found me. Asked if I wanted to help you, I said yes. Obviously.”

“Manipulative little shit” Dan replies, spitting the words out. He puts his hand to his forehead, pinches the bridge of his nose “I just. I can’t.”

~*~

They sleep flat on their backs, side by side. Dan had said that the separate rooms were pointless, now, and had hesitated by the door like someone had hit his pause button, turning to Phil and then back to the door.

Phil said “stay. Stay here. Please.”

And Dan had. 

At some point in the night Dan grabs hold of Phil’s hand, holds it in a tight grip, so when they wake up they almost look like the emoji of the two yellow faced guys, touching only through their fingers, something Phil would find funny under other circumstances. 

Phil raises their entwined hands, clasps them to his chest. 

Dan, sleepily, says “I should have guessed it was you.”

“I suppose.”

“I probably _would_ have guessed. If, you know, I didn’t love you so much” Dan rolls a little to face him, so they can make eye contact. “Phil, when we argued. I mean, actually argued. A few weeks back. You asked me if I was even happy with you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you even happy with me?”

Phil says “how can you ask me that?”

“You’re in denial about a pretty big part of my life. Of who I am. I meant what I said about it, before, but there were times that I enjoyed it, I can’t lie about that. But you didn’t want to talk about it. You never want to talk about it. And now, you’re doing it _for_ me.”

“That’s not who you are now.”

“But it’s who I _was_. If I hadn’t done it we would never have met.”

“I know that.”

“If you can’t accept that, that it’s something that I used to do, then -”

“What? You want to break up?”

Dan looks horrified. It takes him a while to actually form words. “No, that’s the last thing I want. The actual last thing. That’s why I’m so upset, what if something had happened to you? If you leave, I’m not coming back from that, Phil, that’s a fact. But, I like everything about you. Everything. I’m not even angry with you now, and most people would be, but….I know that you said not to talk about it, and I went along with that, but, maybe we should talk about it. Because it’s who I am. Good or bad.”

Phil says “you can’t like everything about someone Dan, that’s not realistic.”

“Like was maybe the wrong word. But you need to accept it. I know it’s not like a personality fault, like buying too many candles or being really clumsy or whatever, it’s actual, uh, criminal activity, but -”

“I do accept it. That was a decision _I_ made” Phil says. “ _I_ came back. I could have left after the Tate, you gave me a complete clean break, but I didn’t, I found you.” 

Dan says “yeah. All of me. You can’t just pick the parts you like and ignore the rest.”

~*~

_The Diego Carmona Foundation is pleased to announce the recovery of its painting, The Piano Lesson, by classical artist Henri Matisse. The painting was located by police in Paris, after being contacted by a local woman, thought to live in the Latin Quarter, who is now helping the authorities with their enquiries. No further comment will be made at this time._

Mark, flatly, opposite Phil in their train seats, says “it needed to be cleaner. It needed to be more professional. You didn’t have to sit and have _tea_. Talking to them is the worst thing you can do.”

Phil says “point taken” thinking of Sophie. Of her rooftop garden. Her bone china teacups filled with rum. Doing the right thing. 

“How did this happen Phil? How did you think this was a good idea?”

Phil is tired and cold. He wants his flat (though oddly, not his current flat. His flat in Islington, with its tiny living room and cracks in the floor tiles). “I just didn’t want him to. That’s all.”

Mark sighs. “These paintings Phil, they’re all ones Jack stole.”

“I know that.”

“They’re all ones that should have been mine. He always got there before me, like he was -”

“Trying to get your attention?” Phil looks up at Mark, from under his hood. “I’d sort of worked that out.”

Mark holds his gaze. “So, what happens next? What was your plan for when Dan found out?”

Phil says “I didn’t have one.”

“You didn’t think he’d find out?” Mark’s hair has faded a little, to a shade of pink that’s almost candy floss coloured. He looks tired. “You honestly didn’t think that he’d know?”

Phil sighs. “I just wanted him to -”

“You just wanted him to not do it. Which is fine, but, also very risky, I guess.”

“Mark, what happened with you and Jack exactly?”

Mark frowns. “That’s an incredibly long story.”

“We have a long train ride.”

“I don’t think he was helping you just because he wanted to help you. I think a lot of it is because of me. Which I’m sorry about. I couldn’t give him what he wanted and that, apparently, is something that he’s still dealing with. I guess.”

“What did he want?”

“Me, basically. Me, and everything that came with it.”

Phil says “oh” and a few things make sense. “But you couldn’t -”

“You can’t be something you’re not, Phil. You can’t feel things that you don’t. Same as this. You can’t pretend to be completely okay with all of this when you’re not. You can’t keep saying that you are.”

Phil says “I’m not. I’m not okay with it. But, mostly, I’m not okay that he’s gone to Germany without either of us.”

~*~

Dan had stayed in the hotel. Phil, packing his bags ready to meet Mark downstairs, said “please. Let me come with you.”

“After what happened this time?” Dan shook his head. “Absolutely not. Just go home. Go to class. Buy a million more houseplants. Get a dog, I don’t care. Just, be in the flat waiting for me when I get back” he looked at Phil from under his eyelashes, like there’s actually a chance that Phil won’t actually be there. 

“I might go to the Isle of Man, maybe. First. But I’ll be there. I promise I will.”

Dan did an odd, tiny, flinch at the mention of the Isle of Man but said “okay. That’s enough for me.”

When they hugged Phil exhaled, right onto Dan’s collarbone and said “I was never in denial, Dan, about anything. I just, buried my head in the sand a bit. Sometimes.”

“That’s the actual definition of denial Phil. But that’s okay.”

Phil kissed him, one hand on Dan’s shoulder, the other in his hair, tried to put everything he could into it, tried to transfer every morsel of feeling between their hearts, pressed his forehead to Dan’s and said “I love you. Every part of you. I mean that. Please come home.”

Dan said “I will. I promise I will.”

~*~

At some point, as the train hits England, Phil gets a text from Jack. It says _the Waterhouse is on the Isle of Man. Which is random. Who lives on the Isle of Man?_

_Oh, and sorry about yesterday. Awkward._

Jack finishes the awkward with the monkey with its paws over its eyes.

Phil says _no, Berlin. Dan’s gone there._

There’s a long pause before Jack replies with _no. It was stolen from the Isle of Man. It was in Germany but now it’s not._

Phil, seriously lacking the patience for this whole thing, says _?????_

He’s back in the flat, having left Mark in the kitchen (he’d claimed he was hungry and Mark, who fusses, is probably making a ten course meal) when Jack replies.

_I’ve got it. I took it first. Funny story actually but too long for text. Just. Think. Who else lives in your building?_

Phil, giving up instantly, phones him. “What do you mean, who else lives in our building?”

Jack, startled, says “oh, hi Phil, I was just -”

“What did you mean? We’ve got, like, one neighbour. He’s got a dog.”

“Well” says Jack. “Isn’t that odd. In a pretty desirable part of London.”

“What are you saying?” Phil is both tired and not in the mood. He paces back and forth across his bedroom. “It’s expensive. People might not be able to afford it.”

Jack says “Phil. The envelope I gave you. With the key in.”

“Yes?”

“It opens the flat below you. It was my safe house. _Is_ my safe house, I guess. Not that I ever used it very much. I didn’t need to” Jack sounds proud, but a hollow sort of pride, like he didn’t get the prize he actually wanted. “You should go and let yourself in.”

He tells Mark that he needs some air. Mark, instantly says “I’ll come with you. For a walk, I could use a walk, walking is good, fresh air, we could go down to the river, we could -” but Phil, feeling awful about it because he actually _would_ like a walk, says “I want to be by myself” and leaves Mark in the kitchen, surrounded by every saucepan that they own.

~*~

The flat downstairs is the exact layout of theirs, except where theirs is full of clutter this just has a few sad items of furniture, like someone was using the most basic room set-ups on The Sims because they didn’t have the cheats.

“I didn’t spend much time there. I told you.”

In what, in the flat above, is their bedroom are five paintings. A canvas covered with a mess of paint. A woman with a scarf around her head. A woman in a chair, staring directly at him. Something that looks like a Roman landscape. A woman stood outside a cinema. 

Phil says “what are these?”

Jack says “they’re the list. Plus Almond Blossoms, which you have. It’s the whole list. The woman with the scarf, looking like she’s in a storm? That’s the Waterhouse, that’s Boreas.”

“That should be in Berlin.”

“Well, it’s not” Jack says. “And, actually, it should be on the Isle of Man.”

Phil thinks of Dan, halfway to Germany for a painting that isn’t even there. Paintings that aren’t even there. They’ve been underneath their flat, the entire time. He says “I have to tell Dan.”

“That’s your call.”

“Did he know this was here? Not the paintings, but the flat? Did he know?”

“I don’t know Phil. He maybe knew that there were other hideouts here but - I wouldn’t know.”

Phil says “my parents have a house on the Isle of Man.”

“Well, isn’t that an amazing coincidence.” 

“I used to go there, sometimes, when no one was there. To clear my head” not really sometimes, more like one time in particular. “I was going to go there now.”

“You could take it with you” Jack says. “I mean, there _is_ a deadline here. Not that anyone seems to be remembering that.”

“Dan will go crazy.”

But then Dan is in Berlin, far away from any potential danger. And Phil now has all the paintings, every single one of them, hidden in a place that Dan doesn’t know about.

Jack repeats “it’s your call. But, Phil, there’s not much time.”

~*~

Dan phones, just as the night is setting in. Phil is out on the balcony of begonias, thinking about Madame Darbonne and staring out into the pink tipped clouds.

Dan says “I’m here. In Germany.”

“I’m here. On the balcony. The flowers are dead.”

“I’ll get you some cornflowers. I’ve seen loads of them. Apparently they’re really easy to grow and survive any temperature.” When Phil doesn’t reply he says “you’re still going to the Isle of Man?”

“Yeah, tomorrow probably. Mark’s going to stay in the flat.”

“Your parents are there?”

“Nope.”

Dan pauses, long enough for Phil to hear faint traffic background noise, and says “you’re going to go and hang around the Isle of Man on your own?”

“I’ve done it before. It’s nice, sometimes, being on your own” Phil regrets his phrasing as soon as he’s said it. “I mean, your own space. Having time to think. I don’t know.”

“Maybe I could meet you there” Dan says, cautiously. “It looks like that’s where I’ll be ending up. You could wait for me there.”

“I’ll wait for you anywhere,” Phil says, instantly, grateful that he hasn’t had to lie in this conversation. “You know that.”

~*~

The assignment, forwarded to him again, is attached to an email from his tutor offering an extension of three weeks and his office open hours, should Phil “want to talk about” what’s bothering him.

The brief asks for a short film of up to ten minutes, focusing on one person, famous or otherwise, using the techniques they’ve learnt to assemble a completely true, or untrue, reflection. _It’s up to you_ is the note at the bottom. _The aim is to show how clever editing can be in creating the overall picture_.

Editing Jack, in the WhatsApp group, has decided to be super clever and pretentious, and make a film about himself, which doesn’t exactly surprise Phil. Someone else is going to do _some crime lord, probably the Krays or something, but cut all references to actual crime from their interviews. It sounds like they’re describing something really beautiful instead. It’s weird_.

Phil reads the email, and all the WhatsApp messages, on the ferry to the Isle of Man. He has three items of luggage; his suitcase, his folio bag, and a haphazardly wrapped parcel (more sellotape than paper), which he keeps propped up against his legs. 

The WhatsApp messages are, really, a distraction tactic from the fact that Dan keeps ringing him every five minutes. The missed calls are well into double figures and are a response to a text Phil sent while he was on the train to Liverpool.

 _Painting not in Germany. Taking it to IoM myself. I’ll wait for you there_. 

On call number twenty he actually answers.

Dan says “you can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“How do you even have it? Is it Jack? I’ll _kill_ him, I’ll literally find him and -”

“There’s a deadline” Phil says, evenly, the speech he’d been running through in his head. “A time before you all get handed in to the police. Remember?”

“ _Yes_. But that’s about _me_ , you can’t - are you on your own?”

Phil says “yes.”

“Don’t do anything until I get there. I’m coming there now - I’m getting a plane to Liverpool and then I’ll come there. This is so _stupid_ Phil, it’s so _fucking_ stupid, why are you doing this? That’s where your parents live, we have trips with them there, do you really want -”

In amongst all the seminar updates, and texts from Dan demanding that he answer his phone, is a text from Jack, with a link that, at one in the morning, took Phil to a page of the Times Online. An article hidden far down on their International News page:

 _French police have tonight identified the local woman thought to be involved in the theft of Matisse’s The Piano Lesson as Sophie Darbonne, a music teacher from Paris. Police chiefs confirmed that they are continuing to question Ms Darbonne, who, sources claim, has been able to give further details regarding a number of other thefts, which police have long thought are the work of a single group of thieves, spanning as far as the USA. It is hoped that a number of arrests will be made as a result_. 

Phil says “I don’t think there’s much time. I messed up. On the last one. Or, I messed up a little on all of them. It _is_ stupid, it was stupid to think I could do it without messing up, but - you haven’t been involved, in any of them. _Your_ list is probably done. So, I mean, I’ve started so I’ll……...you know.”

Dan says “you can’t be serious” again. 

“I’m serious. I’m completely serious.”

~*~

Jack’s text, below the link about Madame Darbonne, says _this isn’t your fault you were always going to talk to her but she was always going to do what she wanted either way i fucked up not you i was only thinking of myself._

_i think i was right about f stealing the painting for her, or arranging it that doesn’t mean she knows about d that doesn’t mean he’s in any danger._

_wait for me before you do anything wait for me before you go to iom or at least wait for d._

The sea is choppy, he regrets eating four Ferrero Rocher at the port before they even set off. The lady next to him, solemnly, says “we’re probably the last one for a while, I can’t see them letting any more ferries over in this.”

Phil says “I hope not.”

His parents’ house is cold, and lacking in food; the pipes make clanging noises when he turns the heating on. His phone immediately dies, like his mood has somehow transferred to it. It takes with it a text from Dan _they’re saying ferries might be cancelled and flights there’s a storm? don’t do anything until i get there, please please don’t do anything until i get there_ that he’d read while opening the door, getting hammered with raindrops, hands so cold that he kept dropping the house keys. 

He puts Boreas in the living room. The girl almost looks like she’s shielding herself from the wind currently howling outside. Phil stands and stares at it for a second (she doesn’t stare back).

The ferries, as expected, get cancelled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> \- The Piano Lesson actually resides in the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
> 
> \- All details about Matisse and his family are, as always, completely true. His entire family (especially his daughter) were pretty badass tbh.
> 
> \- Sorry for the delay with this update. I spent a lot of September on holiday, which was awesome but didn’t give much time for writing. However I did visit a lot of art galleries, which I have a newfound appreciation for!
> 
> \- (oh gosh the angst I’m so sorry)
> 
> (also probably the first chapter ever in this series with no flashbacks I don’t know what’s happening)


	6. 4. boreas - john william waterhouse

When his parents had said that they were moving to the Isle of Man, just after Phil had graduated for a second time, this time with a Masters (because he saw no problem with dragging student life out for as long as possible), Martyn had said “ _why?_ ” and then had to google the location on his phone, repeating “ _why?_ ” again, while Cornelia (early days of relationship, still trying to make a good impression) politely said “it looks lovely.”

“I just like the idea of everyone knowing us” his mother said. “You can get a bit lost sometimes, in a city.”

Martyn didn’t look convinced. “But that’s it, everyone knows _who you are_.”

His mother, as she always did, turned to her more placid younger son and said “Phil, what do you think?”

Phil had always liked the idea, a dream of having a little house with a garden full of flowers and plants that absolutely wouldn’t die, even if it snowed, of walking down to the shops past whole rows of happy, smiling neighbours saying _hi Phil_ and maybe he’d have a dog, or a -

“Phil, what do you think?”

“It looks great” Phil said. “It looks peaceful. You’re surrounded by sea.”

“You’re surrounded by sea _now_ ” Martyn said.

He used that house, over the years, as an escape, somewhere to clear his head, where he could look down the hill and across the sea, thinking about what exactly he was going to do after his Masters, after his post grad, if taking this security guard job really a good idea for him, _him_ , who lost himself most of the time, if going to London was a great idea.

Or, if, after the Tate, he should take the clean slate Dan had offered. Or if he should go back.

(with a couple of hundred thousand pounds worth of painting in the living room, he’d give anything to just go back to worrying about his degree again)

He stands there now, getting pelted in all directions by raindrops and debris from his mother’s rock garden, looking into the ink black sky. The waves and wind are so loud that, combined, they sound like several planes taking off (expect that’s not possible at the moment. There are no planes, no ferries). His Converse sink into the mud. The sea, in all forms including paintings, usually calms him, but it’s not exactly doing that now. It looks angry enough to rise right up over the cliffs and engulf the entire island.

(“what is this, exactly?” Martyn said, wearing sensible walking shoes and a thermal shirt. “Your thinking spot? You look like a Victorian maiden in a painting” he clasped his hand to his forehead, dramatically swooned across the horizon. “What are you pining about?”

Cornelia said “Martyn!”and elbowed him in the side. She had a matching shirt, the same sensible shoes. “Maybe you want to come with us, Phil?”

“Phil doesn’t do hikes,” Martyn looked a little sheepish. “I didn’t mean - I mean, I _know_ what you’re pining about, we all do, I just -”)

Martyn and Cornelia have their own room at the house. His mother puts flowers there sometimes, for Cornelia’s benefit. Phil’s room reminds him, oddly, of his first university dorm room (back in York, with the castle walls and the ducks), single bed, plain walls, bookcase with miscellaneous books that wouldn’t fit anywhere else in the house. He didn’t need a double bed because he never brought anyone back, very rarely had anyone to consider bringing back.

The Isle of Man house felt special somehow, like his parents had bought it as an escape and it deserved to be treated as such. His relationships were mostly fleeting and resulted after a lot of missed signals, mixed messages and pining (from him, always from him); ended with _I just think you’re more invested in this than I am, Phil, it doesn’t seem fair_. He was, Chris always said, a sucker for a sad face, people who looked like they had a secret.

Except the thing with people who look like they have a secret is that they usually _do_. And it’s normally a pretty big one.

(“ - I just wish I could put it right,” Martyn finished. “That’s all. And it’s not your fault. You know that. If I could go back out and get it for you, I would.”

Phil wondered why Martyn had said _it_ , it took a moment before he realised that Martyn meant the Van Gogh, not Dan. He said “that’s okay. And, I mean, it was my fault, a little bit.”

Martyn said “this again, Phil? How long are you going to beat yourself up about it? The police said it was probably the work of that gang, or whatever they said, _professional_ criminals, what could you have done? If it happened again, what would you do?”

Phil, letting Dan out of the basement on a loop that never quite ended, said “exactly the same thing.”

Martyn smiled like his point had been proven and said “precisely.”)

Despite having four bedrooms to pick from he still sleeps in his own, crammed into the single bed under the same duvet he’d had before he moved out (squares of yellow, green and blue), knees pulled up to his chest, nearly touching his chin. He doesn’t sleep much, not with the wind, not with the painting downstairs - not with thinking of Dan, wherever in the world he is right now, halfway to Liverpool maybe, maybe staring at the same black sky. Maybe.

~*~

He goes to buy some supplies for the house. On the way to the shops his parents’ next door neighbour stops him, asks where his parents are, is immediately suspicious that he’s there on his own, two other people look shocked to see him. The lady in the shop (Judith? Jessica?) says “hello Philip! This is a surprise!”

The thing about living somewhere where people know you is pretty much as Martyn said, everyone _knows_ you. He instantly makes himself suspicious, misjudging the situation for what seems like the hundredth time.

Judith or Jessica says “are your parents here? I haven’t seen your mother yet.”

Phil says “no, I’m here on my own.”

She says “oh” and glances down at his sad collection of shopping. The last time Phil was here on his own there was much more wine involved, he can almost hear the wheels in her brain whirring away. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just work and stuff. It’s easier up here, it’s quieter.”

As if on cue a huge gust of wind outside knocks over what sounds like three wheelie bins and sets off two car alarms.

“Or, you know, usually quieter.”

“Is it linguistics? I’m sure that’s what your mum said you were studying.”

“No, that was last time. I’m doing a post grad, in editing.”

“Editing? Isn’t that just cutting things out and putting them in the right order?” she stops and says “I mean, it sounds interesting, but -”

“That’s basically what it is,” Phil agrees, picks up his carrier bag of shopping. “The right order, the wrong order, a better order, anything really.”

She looks perturbed. “I can’t imagine you’ll get much done, not with this weather.”

Phil says “maybe not” completely aware that he is making himself look odd. Odder than usual. “I thought I might walk around for a bit, though, I’ve never been to the touristy stuff here, so -”

She repeats “in _this_ weather? Everything’s probably closed. Except maybe the museum. Or the gallery. Or -”

“The gallery?” Phil acts completely surprised.

“You haven’t been there? Didn’t you work in a gallery? Your mum said -”

Phil had no idea that his mother talked about him so much to random women in shops. It shouldn’t surprise him though, his mother positively overflows with pride and affection for him and Martyn, everyone here probably knows the ins and outs of their lives. “No, I did. I’ve never been to the one here though.”

“It won’t be as nice as the ones you’re used to. It’s very small, mostly a local artist space. They had one really famous painting once, but…..they have a nice tearoom, at least. Oh, and Connor works there, you know Connor”

“I didn’t know he worked there” Phil says, flatly.

“Oh, yes. He’s very talented. And also still single!” she does a cheery wink.

Phil says “sorry, what?”

She seems to think that winking again is a suitable reply.

~*~

The art gallery is predictably small and glass fronted, with a little stone building attached to the front that houses the tearoom and main entrance hall. Phil is soaked through by the time he gets there, his trainers making sad little squelching noises as he pats across the wooden flooring.

There’s a guestbook and also a noticeboard, where guests can take selfies of themselves outside or inside the gallery, with little handwritten captions.

Phil is not surprised to see Jack, hair a much more inconspicuous shade of brown, eyes sparkling. He’s taken the selfie mostly of the gallery with himself in the bottom right of frame, cutting off whoever is in the photo with him. Phil knows someone was because he can see their arm, thrown casually around Jack’s shoulder. Jack looks happy.

Jack’s caption says _we loved our time here, thank you_ in neat little print that’s nothing like Phil would have expected, every letter exactly the same size.

There’s no mention of Boreas anywhere; no indication that they’d ever had it. That it had even existed. If not for Jack’s beaming face, gazing from the centre of the photo collage, Phil would have thought he was in the wrong place. He flicks through the guestbook until he reaches Jack’s perfect handwriting again:

_We loved meeting the God of the North Wind - Sean_

Phil thinks _Sean?_ , wonders if that’s another fake name or if Jack actually, in some weird sentimental mood, signed the book with his real one. There’s no note from whoever Jack was with, whoever the other half of the “we” was. But Phil isn’t sure if he needs a clue for that one, he can work out who it was with some degree of confidence.

As the lady in the shop (Janice? Jane? She’d yelled _give your mother my love_ as he’d left and he’d said _I will!_ with no idea of who she was) had said, most of the gallery is set into little sections of studios, with local artists’ work on display. There are maybe five or six other people in the main room (all varying degrees of windswept) and they all do a polite little waltz around each other, so no one is looking at the same thing at the same time.

There are lots of paintings of the sea. He picks up a few postcards because he never could resist paintings of the sea, selects the ones that are brightest and have the most shades of blue.

He’s looking at a huge painting, that almost looks like it could have been done in his parents’ garden, looking over to England, when he hears his name.

Connor has a sweet, bright face, a soft speaking voice and, apparently, a huge crush on Phil. So he’s told.

“Phil!” says Connor, again. He has a look on his face like Phil just hung the moon. Phil recognises that look, he _invented_ that look. “I didn’t know you were back!”

(Phil’s mother, in the after Dylan days, or actually in the days after every poor romantic choice Phil had made up to that point, had tried to set him up with Connor, through a series of elaborate set ups that had eventually ended with his father saying _God Kathryn, leave the boy alone_.

Connor had been pretty decent about it, which Phil thought was nice of him, until Dan [on his first visit to meet Phil’s parents, running into Connor at a bar] said, eyes narrowed, “did you two used to date or something?”

Phil said, confused, “no, never. Why?”

“Because he obviously has a huge crush on you.”

Phil had made a “pppffftt” noise and then said “seriously, why would he?”

Dan gave him a look of complete disbelief, like Phil had just said that he thought the Earth was flat.)

Phil says “hi. And I’m just visiting, really.”

“Wow, I haven’t seen you for months, when you were here with…..”

“Dan” Phil supplies.

“That’s right. You’re here to see your parents?”

“No, here on my own. Trying to get some work done.”

Connor looks concerned, which is fair. The last time Phil was here on his own had been just after London and he’d spent a lot of time in pubs that Connor would just happen to be in, drunkenly talking in riddles because he was so scared of saying something he shouldn’t, accidentally.

Phil says “some uni work, that’s all. Everything’s fine” just to clarify.

Connor says “oh, okay. You’re still doing the uni thing? Linguistics?”

“It’s editing now, a post grad”

Connor’s about to say something else when one of the other visitors comes over to ask him about one of the paintings of Peel Castle. Phil makes a swift exit.

~*~

His mother had mentioned Connor for the final time when his parents were helping him set up the flat in Islington. Or, rather, he was watching them do it because he couldn’t really be trusting with carrying boxes or emptying them in a way that met his mother’s standards ( _you’re fussing!_ his father said _stop fussing him, he’s fine_ ).

“Connor comes to London a lot” his mother said, hanging one of Phil’s photo frames. “For his work.”

His father sighed.

“Maybe you could meet up with him. When he’s here next.”

Phil said “maybe I could.”

The photo frame his mother had just hung contained about forty assembled photographs, polaroids from uni, prints he’d picked up from various places. In the top corner was a photo of Dan, sleeve over his hand, hand over his mouth. His mother barely glanced at it. Phil didn’t stop looking at it.

~*~

Phil casually stands in the entrance hall, flicking through the guestbook, pretending not to notice the little glances that Connor keeps flashing in his direction.

He recognises the handwriting in one of the last entries, the big swooping letters. He normally sees it at the bar, asking for the closing number of a show that no-one has ever heard of and that Dan has to listen to at least three times on Spotify before he can play.

_Definitely a number one! Nice to have experience locally, even for tearoom! Definitely one outstanding retreat :) Keep exhibiting - you’re perfect!_

The date is two days ago. Phil stares at it, until:

**D** efinitely **a** **n** umber **o** ne! **N** ice **t** o **h** ave **e** xperience **l** ocally, **e** ven **f** or **t** earoom! **D** efinitely **o** ne **o** utstanding **r** etreat :) **K** eep **e** xhibiting - **y** ou’re **p** erfect! 

DAN ON THE LEFT DOOR KEY P

Phil says “oh” outloud and looks at the photos above, expecting to see PJ’s ringlets, his easy smile, usual pastel knit Fair Isle print knitwear. There’s nothing. Dan, on the left door, key - Peej. Phil wonders if they did this a lot, if Dan would have known, instantly to check the guestbook.

“Phil?  Connor says. “You okay? You’ve been standing in the entrance for ages.”

There are two tourists, puddles forming around their feet, standing politely next to him, waiting to write in the book.

Phil says “oh, sorry” and steps aside, leaving his postcards on the table. “Hey, is there another way out?”

Connor frowns. “Not for the public, I mean - there’s two doors for the artists, either side but -” he points to the main entrance. “That’s the way out, past the donations.”

The donations are about five painting shaped boxes, of varying sizes, wrapped up securely in cardboard. Phil says “donations?”

“Yeah. It’s for people who are too nervous to put their names to their paintings yet - they can leave them here anonymously. We have a show at the end of every month for them.”

“That’s a really cool idea.” Phil stares at the boxes, the anonymous brown parcels.

Boreas is about five times the size of the biggest one, there’s no way he could leave it here without someone questioning it. Or could he. He stands there for a second, as Connor is about to start another variation on _you okay_ and then leaves.

~*~

The left entrance is obviously the least used, the path to it is slick with mud and weeds, and it seems to lead away from the studio area. Phil can’t imagine that any artists would risk carrying their work into or out of it.

There are a lot of stones, littering the pathway. He picks all of them up, until he notices one, buried in the earth, that looks slightly too perfect. Like if you purchased a rock from Ikea and then purposely covered it in dirt. Something you wouldn’t even notice unless you were looking.

It’s artificial, obviously, with a little door underneath that he instantly pops open. Inside is a plastic wallet with a key, and a note.

_Can’t risk phoning at the moment. Things are getting bad. Got this started because YOU seem to be taking your time, as usual. Get it done. Don’t phone me until I phone you._

There’s nothing about what the key opens, though Phil assumes it’s the left door. The note is vague enough to be obvious, if you know PJ, and also to not give much away. Phil reads _things are getting bad_ again. And again.

Phil stumbles and slips his way back up the path and straight into Connor, who is holding an umbrella and a small carrier bag.

“You don’t have an umbrella” he says. “And you forgot your postcards.”

“Oh” Phil says, and takes both. “Thanks”

“It’s nice, that those are the prints that you chose,” Connor nods to the bag.

“Well, I like paintings of the sea,” Phil replies. “And these were really good, so -”

“I painted them” Connor says. He’s smiling. “No one ever buys my stuff, not when the other artists are so good.”

Phil blinks, against both the raindrops and Connor’s smile. “You’re one of the artists here?”

“Yep, sales clerk by day, artist by night. I mean, literally, by night. I’m here until two in the morning most nights” Connor reaches out, pats Phil’s arm.

“You’re here until two in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Connor looks bemused but in a very endeared way. “It was nice to see you Phil, stop by again sometime. I mean, before you go.”

Phil wants to scream, he wants to throw himself onto the ground, mud soaking right through his jeans, and _scream_. He manages to say “I will. I definitely will” which means a completely different thing to him from what it does to Connor, whose already bright face seems to lighten even more. “Thanks for the umbrella. And the prints, they’re lovely, your paintings…..are lovely. I mean.”

Connor says “thanks Phil” and deliberately makes sure their fingers brush when he passes Phil the pile of postcards.

~*~

Phil hated London, at first. He hated the Tate, which was too big, he hated 90% of his workmates, who liked to remind him that he’d left his last job because he left a Van Gogh get stolen. He didn’t even like much of the artwork, which was full of canvases with stripes of paint, things that he just didn’t _get_.

He’d been there a month when he saw Dan again. He was walking in through the exit door because he’d forgotten the code for the security entrance, had thrown the door open right into the face of someone who was actually using the exit properly, tried to catch it and failed.

Phil said “oops, sorry” but the last syllable stuttered a little, when he looked up and saw that the someone was Dan.

He blinked like he was trying to clear his vision, shook his head against the sudden roaring in his ears, a million waves crashing in a million seas. Dan. With shorter hair and no earrings and paler and sadder and _Dan_. Phil thought he had made a sound, without meaning to, a gasp possibly, under his breath. He froze with his hand on the door, Dan froze mid-step.

Someone, somewhere, suddenly pressed the play button and Dan moved and said “I -” at the same time as Phil moved and said “no, not here.”

Dan looked pained.

Phil said “you can’t seriously be doing it here too, again.”

Dan seemed to register the security guard uniform. It was nicer than the one in Manchester, even if it still didn’t really fit Phil properly. He said “you’re still -”

“What? In my job? Thanks for the observation.”

Dan, for the first but certainly not the last time, said “let me explain..”

Phil had let the door close in his face but had caught it, at the last second, and let it gently slip from his grasp, so that it wouldn’t actually hurt Dan, would probably just tap him on the nose.

He had run around the corner, on shaking legs that eventually gave way, and sat with his back pressed to the wall - hadn’t cried exactly but made rough, sobbing noises like he was, like he was trying to stop his heart from bursting. Or breaking. He’s found that they both feel quite similar.

~*~

When his phone comes back to life it brings so many missed calls and messages that it gives one long drawn out version of his ringtone before promptly dying again. It takes three attempts before it stays on long enough for him to actually read any of them.

A few from Jack. A few from Mark.

One from Louise.

There are so many from Dan that it takes several finger swipes to get to the start of them; the first few are mostly a continuation of _don’t do anything until i get there please don’t do anything until i get there_ before it turns into a one sided conversation of:

_you’re not replying why aren’t you replying_

_just reply to say that you’re okay_

_phil if you don’t reply i’m going to SWIM to the iom_

_i’ll do it_

_i’m sorry_

_i’m going to guess that you’re not going to reply until you’ve returned the painting that’s fine just i hope you’re okay i hope that you’re safe_

_actually it’s not fine reply to me please_

There’s about two hours between the first cluster of messages and then the second.

_when was the last time that we were apart for longer than 24 hours i can’t even remember the last time i had breakfast without you but i did this morning and it sucked_

His signal is awful and it takes three attempts but he manages to reply _I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Except for having breakfast without you, that’s not fine. And other things without you too_

~*~

Louise’s message, oddly, says _they have artists space there and the artists stay until really late. I’d do it in the early hours of the morning, personally. Oh and I hope you’re okay! Please let me know if you need anything_ \- it finishes, Louise style, with three pink hearts.

He puts Connor’s paintings up on the mantelpiece in his room. They’re pretty good, lots of blue, shorelines that he recognises. One has some sailboats, one right in the centre, cheerfully perched on the curve of a wave. Phil stares at that one for a while. He’s seen it before (on a wall, being carried out of a basement, in a box).

It’s difficult to sleep with the wind still howling around the house. His signal is still shaky, springing into life every thirty minutes or so, but never enough to actually let messages come through.

~*~

The Tate gift shop was huge and full of hardback photobooks that cost about £40, which no one ever seemed to buy (though they had a ridiculous amount of shoplifters, for an art gallery), and had two salesclerks, Tina and Zoe, who never really did much selling, due to distinct lack of customers.

He was used to looking over to the gift shop and seeing either Tina or Zoe, or both sometimes, staring across the entrance hall in search of Finn (who was the head of security and looked like someone had made him in a lab, using features of all the best Abercrombie models).

The gift shop clerks wore red shirts, a happy bright colour that didn’t suit Dan’s colouring at all.

“You’ve got a new person?” he said to Zoe, pretending to be interested in a book of American Quilts for his mum’s birthday (she actually would have loved it). “I thought I saw -”

“Oh, yeah, Liam,” Zoe replied.

Phil felt his breath hitch in his throat. When he said “Liam?” it came out like a croak that he had to style out with a cough. “Liam?”

Zoe raised an eyebrow, slight twinkle of interest in her eye, “yeah. He’s on lunch now but, -”

“No, no, I was just asking.”

“Uh huh”

Tina, who scared Phil slightly, said “I think he’s single, Phil. He doesn’t say much but I think he is. We could ask”

“No, no. I mean, _no_. I was really just asking."

In a panic to leave he knocked half a book display over and yelled “sorry!” over his shoulder. He spent the rest of the afternoon watching Dan clear it up, making sure that all of the dropped books went back perfectly symmetrically.

Over the next few days he watched Dan a lot, without Dan ever noticing. Watched him kneeling down to chat to a collection of seven-year-olds on a school trip, all of whom looked extremely bored by the gifts on offer; sneaking a couple of bags of the overpriced Tate sweets [what even are Tate sweets? Phil never knew] to a stressed looking tour guide; chatting with Zoe; tidying his fringe approximately a hundred times; listened to him talking to one of the school trip kids, his normal voice, not the higher one that he used to put on, sometimes, at work, his actual voice, lower and posher.

(“You realise” Phil had said once, in Manchester, “that you have a work voice?”

“I know,” Dan said, looking surprised that Phil had noticed. “I sound like Winnie The Pooh with my actual voice, that’s why.”

“You’re talking in your actual voice now.”

Dan said “well that’s because I don’t have to be fake around you.”

Phil had felt honoured by that, even though it possibly hadn’t been 100% true, as Dan, at that point, was still Dylan, but the point still stood.)

One of the school trip kids had gotten lost, they were always getting lost, and Dan (bag of sweets in one hand, small child’s hand in the other) said, low and posh, sounding like a cartoon bear, “let’s find a security guard, shall we?”

Phil had hidden behind one of the huge plant pots by the shop’s entrance, watched Dan walk away, while Tina said “well, that explains where all of the sweets are going.”

Later, the same day, he’d walked into the shop and said “ _Dan_ ” for the first time, while Dan had frozen, his hand outstretched to Phil’s shirt collar, like his name, from Phil’s mouth, was the only thing that he’d ever wanted to hear.

~*~

He has another alone breakfast and checks his messages. Dan had obviously replied straight away, even though it hadn’t reached Phil’s phone until hours later.

_you’re okay thank you thank you for being okay i’m in liverpool but there’s still no ferries is there internet can we skype i want to see you_

His signal seems to be holding out so he replies to say _I can just about read my messages, there’s no chance of skype. I’m fine, honestly, are YOU fine?_

Dan doesn’t reply immediately, worrying signs for someone who is basically surgically attached to his phone. This tells Phil that something is wrong way before the message even appears.

_i’m telling you this because i’ve decided that we should actually use our words more communication wise - one of felix’s houses got raided nothing found but police moving - not much time_

_Is this because of Paris?_

_i don’t know but that wasn’t your fault anyway - and no one’s heard from pj for a while_

_He was here, I found a note_

Dan attempts to phone him, his face (dimpling from under a cherry blossom) fills Phil’s screen, and his signal, after allowing him a two second glance of Dan’s smile, quietly cuts out.

~*~

He walks back to the gallery, right into the path of the wind, unable to keep his hood up. His hair, once he gets inside the entrance hall, is quiffed and spiky, like an anime character.

“The prints” he says to Connor, who is stood in his little artist’s space. “Is one of them based on something else?”

Connor smiles and says “yeah! No one notices that. It’s a Van Gogh painting, not one of his famous ones. How did -”

“It’s one of my favourite paintings,” Phil says.

“Really? The Sea at Saintes Maries? It’s one of mine too - I like all the blue. It’s such a happy painting.”

Phil says “that’s what I think too. Exactly.”

He sees the moment that it happens, the flash of hope in Connor’s eyes and the catch in his voice when he says “would you like to -”

If Phil was another person, if he’d done this before, knew what plans worked and what plans didn’t, he might arrange a date with Connor, the perfect excuse to get him out of the gallery. He could rush in, hang the painting, then turn up saying _gosh, sorry I’m late_ , and then go through the motions of having a few drinks or whatever, a plan and an alibi all in one.

Except he looks at the hope in Connor’s face and he can’t do it. He says “I have a boyfriend. Just to, uh, make that clear. You met him.”

Connor’s face falls, like a dimmer switch has been used. “Oh. No, that’s okay. I wasn’t - is he here with you?”

Phil sighs and says “no.”

“You’re here actually on your own? Where is he?”

“He’s coming over. Just with the storm and stuff, everything got cancelled.”

Connor says “oh, right” like he’s not that convinced.

“He was going to, uh, come here, to see the paintings. He thought that you had a famous one? I can’t remember the -”

Connor says “Boreas. Is that the one you mean?”

“Yes! But I -”

“We don’t have that anymore.”

“You don’t?” Phil tries to look as innocent as possible, probably makes his eyes a little too wide. “Did you sell it?”

Connor shakes his head. “Someone took it. A while ago. It was a whole big upsetting thing, we don’t really mention it that much. I don’t really like to mention it that much.”

Phil frowns at him. “Why?”

“Well, I was here. When it happened. I just couldn’t stop it” he shrugs, looks at his feet. “I think they took it through the left door, I was in here, I had music” he shakes his hands near his ears, like headphones. “Didn’t see anything, hear anything. It was here and then it was gone. We’re not really supposed to…..we’re supposed to keep an eye on things, if we’re here late. I just didn’t -”

Phil says “it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was a gorgeous painting too. I’m sure he would have liked it.”

Dan actually hates all portraits, Phil knows this. He says “I bet he would have” anyway, to make Connor feel better. “I’m going to buy him some prints actually. Maybe a few more of yours?”

“Really?” Connor brightens again. “You’re gonna make me sell out, no one ever buys mine. Seriously.”

“Pick some," Phil says. “I’m just going to, uh, get some air.”

Connor looks doubtfully outside, at the wind (so strong that the leaves on the trees across the path look like waves), the rain. “To get some air?”

Phil can’t think of an excuse so he says nothing, just nods and ducks out of the entrance, wind pinning him against the door.

~*~

Phil tries the key in the left door. It works. It appears to open onto a corridor with two steps at the end which, he guesses, must cross through the tearoom somehow into the artists’ space on the other side. He still can’t work out where the painting would have hung, in a gallery this small, or why all trace of it has been erased.

He checked back through the guestbook before leaving, right back to the beginning. Boreas is never mentioned by name, and only very vaguely in Jack’s note: _We loved meeting the God of the North Wind - Sean_

Boreas was the Greek God of the North Wind, Phil knows that. He _researched_ that. By _meeting_ he isn’t sure if Jack actually meant _stealing_.

The only thing that he is sure of, really, is that he’s running out of time.

~*~

He goes back, sits in the tearoom, staring at the donation pile. Tiny little canvases wrapped in cardboard. There’s no way he can put Boreas there, even though it’s the perfect, easiest thing to do. The painting’s huge, he could never carry it in here, in front of everyone, and casually leave it there.

“Ferries should be up and running tomorrow,” Connor says, from behind him. “Which is good news for your boyfriend.”

(“Why don’t you give him a chance?” Phil’s mother said, unpacking his bedding. “He’s such a nice boy. Lovely, easy going personality. Not like all of these ones you like, with the moodiness and the brooding and the rushing off to look after pandas.”

“ _Kathryn_ ” said his father)

Phil, startled out of his daydreaming, turns to face him and says “oh! Yeah, it is.”

Connor appears to have a debate with himself, steps forward and back, before sitting in the chair opposite. “I mean, would you like to go for a drink or something tonight? Nothing like, you know, but - it seems weird, to have you in that house on your own. While I’m here, on my own.”

“Won’t you be here?”

“Until 9ish probably. But, I could walk over and meet you, or we could -”

“Or I could walk over and meet you here,” Phil suggests. “It might be easier."

Connor agrees easily. Phil knew he would, he’ll probably make sure he’s all artfully messed up, paint on his nose or something equally adorable. He gives Phil a pile of prints for Dan, no charge.

There’s a duplicate of The Sea at Saintes Maries because “it’s your favourite. He must like it too, right?”

“He actually thinks it’s a really sad painting,” Phil says, staring at it. “But thank you, I’ll try to change his mind.”

~*~

At the house, he changes into a blue shirt with hearts that he’d forgotten he owned, hidden in the back of his single door wardrobe, attempts to text Dan _going to do it tonight_ , but it doesn’t go through.

He wraps another layer of paper around Boreas, and then some cardboard, just to avoid rain damage.

He wonders if he should leave a note, in case he gets caught and Dan has to come here, to an empty house, but is that tempting fate? He’s not sure. He doesn’t leave a note for two reasons: 1. It assumes something will go wrong. 2. He would have no idea what to write to Dan. Other than _I did it for you. So that you’d be safe_ , which is horribly dramatic and horribly true.

~*~

He walks to the gallery, head down in the wind, with Boreas under his arm, deliberately approaches from the left so that Connor doesn’t glance out through the glass front and see him.

He lets himself in through the left door, tiptoes across the the corridor and into the tearoom, steps down to the entrance hall. He’s just rearranging the parcels so that Boreas, huge and obvious, is hidden a little, at the back, when he hears a rustling behind him and then -

Connor says “Phil?” and then “what the hell is that?”

“I’m donating!” Phil says, attempts a fake happy tone that absolutely doesn’t pay off. “I just -”

“That’s huge. That’s like a professional portrait size.”

Phil says, or squeaks, “is it?”

“Yeah. Can I see it?”

“What?”

“Can you open it so I can see it?” even now Connor doesn’t sound suspicious. He’s smiling. “Come on, I’ll wrap it back up afterwards.”

Phil can see no way out of the situation so he steps back, lets Connor walk up and tear off a strip of paper.

He tears straight across the middle, reveals the top of her head, the daffodil behind her ear, the sweeping slate colour of her scarf. Connor stops, looks at Phil.

Phil automatically, on reflex, says “I’m sorry.”

Connor swallows, holds the paper fold between his fingertips. “What are you sorry for?”

Phil, not expecting that response, freezes up. What is he sorry for exactly? Sorry for bringing it back? Sorry for sneaking in? Sorry that -

“Sorry that I caught you?” Connor lets the paper drop, so the painting is covered again.

Phil repeats “I'm sorry.”

“Why do you _have_ it?”

“It’s a long story, Connor, but I was just going to leave it here. And then it wouldn’t be found until -”

“Wouldn’t be _found_? Phil, it’s _huge_ , look at it.”

From all the millions of thoughts and sentences that are roaring around in his head, Phil manages to say “don’t call the police.”

Connor blinks at him “what?”

“Don’t call the police. Please.”

Connor, slowly, like he’s stepping around a trap with every word, says “I wouldn’t. This is, literally, something that I’ve dreamed about happening. For months.”

It’s Phil’s turn to blink and say “what?”

“I can’t believe - everyone was so proud to have it and then it just…..vanished. I was here, but I was right in the studio over there, I didn’t see anything., like I said. And everyone kinda blamed me, because I was here and I just thought, wow, imagine if one day I came back and there it was.” Connor looks down at the painting. “And here it is. It’s like….putting something right. No one will care _how_ it came back, just that it’s back. And I can stop, you know, _thinking_ about it. You have no idea what it’s been like.”

Phil says “actually, I probably do."

“Then you understand. Why I’m reacting like this and, you know, not calling the police. This is just…..like fixing everything. I can’t…...you get what I mean. Right? When I said no one buys my stuff, that’s because I’m the one that got the Waterhouse stolen, nothing else. I just…..you get what I mean?”

“Yes.”

Connor nods, appears to calm himself down, even though he’s been remarkably calm throughout. “I can’t believe you brought it back. I knew you were here for a reason, you never just _visit_. This is, like, the best reason. Even better than what I thought.”

“What did you think?”

Connor brushes this remark aside.“What should I say, exactly?”

“Well, nothing. I came to meet you, we left, everything was fine; let someone else find it tomorrow, say you didn’t see who left it here, in the donations.”

“Okay, you’ve already thought about it, that’s fine,” Connor sounds startled, at the ease with which the lie had tripped off Phil’s tongue. “I mean, it’s going to look weird that you randomly came to stay, on your own, and then this suddenly reappeared.”

“No it won’t,” Phil says. “No one notices me. Not properly.”

Connor, full of fondness, like he and Phil are speaking after years of history, not just fleeting meetings where one of their mothers tries to matchmake, says “that’s not true Phil. _I_ notice you."

~*~

The Van Gogh, returned, in a cardboard box on the floor of the Tate, soundtracked by alarm bells, was a message; as obvious as if Dan had written over it, in capital letters, YOU DON’T HAVE TO COME BACK. It was a clean slate, the very thing that had separated them in the first place, unstolen. Back where it should be.

The owner of the Tate came to meet him personally, offered him anything that he wanted.

He said “actually, can I have one of the pianos?”

“The pianos? From the exhibition?”

“Yeah. I mean, if that’s okay. I’ll show you which one.”

“They’re pretty old though. And mostly out of tune. And the keys stick.”

“I know. But that’s what I want. Nothing else.”

If the Van Gogh was a _you don’t have to come back_ then the piano, announced during the world’s most awkward interview, was an _I’m coming back_. Except his mother had then completely freaked out and he’d ended up on the Isle of Man for a few days, waiting for his phone to ring.

His phone had not rung. And Dan didn’t respond to any calls or texts.

He had stood in the garden a lot then. No one entirely understood why, or why he was reacting the same way to having stopped a theft as he did when he let one happen. He told his mother, who brought him pieces of parkin and cups of tea, that he needed to “make a decision. A big one."

There was a day, maybe more than a day, where he considered taking the clean slate that had been offered. Maybe Dan’s past was too much, maybe he’d never fully be able to accept it, maybe the backstory was just overwhelming. Maybe he should just go back to London, start his course, and try to avoid giving second glances to any boy he saw with dark hair and eyes.

His mother said “oh Phil, I can’t stand this.”

He was sat in the grass, mug in hand, mouthful of parkin, managed to mumble “what?”

“You. Pining like this. Is this still about Dylan? Japan isn’t that far away. You could make it work.”

“His job’s pretty difficult though. To make time for me.”

“Looking after baby pandas?” she smiled. “That doesn’t seem difficult. I’ve seen them on youtube, rolling up and down slides and that. Adorable.”

Phil wishes sometimes that he’d come up with a less cute job for “Dylan” to have run off too. “I just mean, it _could_ be difficult.”

“Well, not everything can be easy, love. Sometimes the best things are the ones you have to work for” she sat down next to him. “Tell me about him, you never have, really. What was he like?”

“He’s sad sometimes, but not with me. He can be anti-social, but not with me. He puts on an act with people, when he’s uncomfortable, but he never once did that with me. I loved seeing all the times that he let his guard down, and then those times started happening more and more often. And I thought he wasn’t romantic really, but apparently he likes grand gestures. He literally gave me….” his voice trailed off, conscious that he’d answered in present tense. “He put things right. He didn’t like that I was sad, or what had happened, so he did everything he could to make it better.”

His mother looked confused but didn’t push further. “Well, it’s a shame I never got to meet him.”

(Phil wonders if she’s ever realised that he’d described Dan, every single quirk and detail that formed him; if she ever, looking out of the kitchen window while Dan chatted with Phil’s father, thought _wait……….._. Maybe she just thought that he had a type.)

“You did always like the sad ones though” she said, patted his shoulder as she stood up.

Phil said “maybe.”

~*~

“So” Connor says. “I’m not going to make you say anything that you don’t want to, but, the painting.”

Phil says “I can’t tell you how I got it. If that’s what you’re going to ask.”

Connor shrugs. “I think it’s to do with your boyfriend, personally. But, I mean, you don’t have to tell me” when Phil says nothing, he says “I’ll take your silence a yes. Which….I can’t tell you what to do. No one can.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean” but he does, really. He knows exactly what it’s supposed to mean.

“You deserve better than that. You deserve someone nice and simple. How did you even _meet_ him?”

He knows that Connor deserves to be listened to, and that he doesn’t intend to instantly hit upon every closed up crack in Phil’s heart, but he can feel annoyance rising.

Connor says “I mean, _you’re_ nice, Phil. You’re a very sweet person, I don’t understand how you could end up…….I always thought that you’d be living here, in the peace.”

“I’m not going to try and explain it, Connor. I can’t. I don’t even know where to start.”

He starts making his way over to the exit door. Connor, voice sad and plaintive, says “oh. We’re not really going for drinks?”

“I’m not sure if that would be fair” Phil replies. He’s not sure what he means, or who exactly it wouldn’t be fair to.

Connor says “I get it” like he actually does.

~*~

He takes the long route, back to his parents’ house, to try and clear his head.

He jumps almost two feet in the air when there’s a knock on the door. He immediately thinks police, maybe Connor, maybe the police _and_ Connor. He can’t even ignore it, as he’s turned on every single light in the place, trying to brighten things up.

He opens the door cautiously as though the person on the other side is somehow going to burst their way in.

~*~

Phil had walked the length of London, it felt like, various pins stuck in Google Maps. He’d been to every kind of piano bar there was - wine bars, fancy hotel bars, a duelling piano bar (actually kind of awesome). He was kind of fixated on the piano, like the piano meant something, like Dan would use the piano as a clue, a way for Phil to find him.

None of this explained why Dan wasn’t answering his phone, of course, but Phil had long since decided that there was a reason for that, that Dan had maybe had to get rid of his phone, or had it taken from him, to avoid anything after the job.

The bar was called The Reprise. Or _is_ called The Reprise. As far as he could tell it had one pianist, who played songs from musicals while you ate (very overpriced) food. He hadn’t been optimistic, it didn’t seem like the type of place that Dan would work, but then it also looked vaguely similar to a bar in Manchester where they’d been thrown out after he’d tried to play the Attack on Titan theme (and Dan, laughing, had said _thank you for finding me a piano_ ).

He got there five minutes before the pianist was due to start, ordered a powder blue cocktail at the bar, was just bringing the glass to his lips when Dan walked out.

Dan, into the microphone, mumbled “hiimDan” and began, played something from a show that Phil didn’t recognise, something sad and yearning, a torch song that was trying to beckon someone from far away.

Phil, frozen in place, glass still hovering in front of his mouth, thought _look over here please look over here I’m RIGHT here_

It took four songs, four songs in which Phil didn’t move, sat trembling in place, four songs before there was a sudden crash, a huge echoing flat note, and then Dan: staring right back at him.

There you are. Found you at last.

~*~

On the doorstep, in no coat whatsoever, just an awful plant print sweater that Phil hates, hair plastered to his head from the rain, is Dan. His cheeks are red and his hands, when he brings them to Phil’s face, are freezing cold. Phil has to resist the urge to flinch away. The wool of Dan’s sweater is soaked through, scratching against Phil’s skin.

Dan says “you’re okay” disbelievingly, runs his hands down Phil’s sides, as if checking he’s still in one piece. “You’re okay. Right?”

Phil says “ _look_ at you” because he’s dripping water from his sweater cuffs and his fringe. “Get inside.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Dan says, but he obediently steps onto the welcome mat and lets Phil lean behind him to close the door. He doesn’t take his hands from Phil’s waist.

“I’m fine. Honestly, I’m fine.”

“Where’s the painting?”

Phil looks down at Dan’s feet, Dan hooks a finger under his chin and tilts his head up so they’re actually making eye contact. Phil swallows and says “I returned it. About an hour ago.”

Dan says “oh”, shivers a little, says “oh” again. “I told you to wait.”

“I didn’t” Phil replies. “That was the whole point. How did you _get_ here?”

“I have a friend who knows someone with a boat” Dan returns to giving Phil a check over, flattens his palm to Phil’s chest. “You did it by yourself?”

“PJ left a note, a message in the guestbook. And, then, it didn’t really go to plan, and it wasn’t really by _myself_ but -”

Dan tightens his hand in Phil’s jumper, pulls him a step closer. He says “Tell me about it later” in a murmur, against Phil’s lips.

Phil tilts his head away. “I’ll tell you about it now. When we say later, later doesn’t always happen.”

Dan leaves his hand where it is but says “okay. Tell me now.”

Phil does. He doesn’t leave out any details to make Dan feel better, he doesn’t skip anything, he says it all - from leaving Paris right through to now, in his parents’ hallway.

Dan doesn’t say much back, not until later in Phil’s room ( _your room!_ , in between pressing kisses to Phil’s jaw, _your tiny room, this tiny bed, it’s like being in uni_ ), as Phil is peeling the soaked, hideous, plant sweater off him, kissing the goosebumped skin underneath, he clears his throat and says “thank you.”

“What?”

Dan says “you heard me” and pulls him forwards until they land in an undignified pile on Phil’s tiny bed.

~*~

“There was a day that I wasn’t going to come back,” Phil says. “You should know that, there was a day where I’d decided.”

It’s about two in the morning, the rain has turned into hailstones, hitting the window like someone’s throwing them deliberately (Dan, sleepily, an hour ago, said _that means the storm’s ending. I think_ ).

Dan, head on Phil’s chest, says “I’d prepared myself for that. And it was fair.”

“But I changed my mind.”

“You did.”

“The French lady, Madame Darbonne, asked me if I loved you and then she asked me why.”

“Okay.”

Phil says “Martyn never understood why our parents moved here, but I did. I loved the idea of having a little house with a garden full of flowers that I wouldn’t kill, and neighbours who know me, and a dog, and just a nice, gentle life. You know?”

Dan says, flatly, “you’re not exactly getting a nice gentle life with me though.”

“While I was here I saw Connor again, you remember Connor.”

Dan’s voice somehow gets flatter. “I remember Connor.”

“He’s really nice, and he’s just…..he has a little house, and a dog probably, and he really -”

“Is this supposed to be making me feel better?”

“I’m not explaining it very well,” Phil takes a breath. “I mean that I don’t want any of those things, not really, because they don’t mean anything if they’re not with you. And maybe people can’t understand why, but that’s fine, I know what makes me happy.”

“I don’t see how I can be making you happy, at this point.”

“Maybe not this month, but, overall, I mean.”

Dan lifts his head. “And _Connor_ made you think all this?”

“He said he always thought I’d live here, where it’s peaceful, and maybe I don’t get much peace with you right now, but I get _you_. So there’s that.”

Dan gives him a long look. “And what did you say to the French lady?”

“I said I loved you because I was the one to make you stay. And that you show me the real you.”

“And that’s a reason to love me?” there’s some hesitancy in Dan’s voice, like Phil is going to say no, like Phil would _ever_ say no.

“You said, once, that you never wanted to be yourself until here I was. Or something like that, I can’t remember the exact -”

“No, that’s exactly what I said.”

“That’s a lot to show someone. Yourself.”

Dan keeps on looking at him, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle in what Phil’s saying, like there are clues that he’s missing, like he isn’t sure if what Phil’s saying is good or not, waiting for a punchline.

Phil says “ _that’s_ a reason to love you.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Dan replies, but he looks fond, rather than confused. “And, the painting, Boreas…..I, this is so odd to say, but - that’s how I would have done it. The job. Exactly like you did.”

Phil feels oddly proud. “Really?”

“Yeah. Just with less talking to Connor,” Dan rolls his eyes, props himself up on his elbows, presses a kiss to Phil’s chest, right over his heart.

Phil, seeing where this is going, says, lightly “jealous?”

Dan shuffles himself up a little, until his arms are bracketing Phil’s head. He makes a little huff noise and raises his eyebrows.

“Use your words Dan.”

“Yeah, we need to work on that,” Dan replies, just before he leans in to kiss him.

~*~

Dan, hair fluttering all around his face, said “so, this is what exactly?”

“My thinking spot” Phil did a little ta-da motion with his hands. “Where I come to stare out at the sea and ponder stuff”

“Stare out at the sea?”

“I love the sea. It calms me.”

Dan reached out and grabbed his hand. “I know it does.” He looked across the drop at the end of the garden, over the path between the house and the cliff face. “What sort of stuff did you ponder?”

“Oh, you know,” Phil shrugged. “Stuff. Pondery stuff.”

Dan smiled like he’d given a completely different answer to that question. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Here?”

“Well, not specifically _here_ , but I mean, here.” Dan threw his arms out, wide, like he was trying to embrace the whole island. “Here. With your family. Your thinking spot. With you.”

~*~

The wind is still pretty strong, the grass around him twists and swoops like he’s stood in the middle of green waves. The rock garden is now sadly lacking rocks, which he should probably tell his mother about.

“We can find her some rocks,” Dan says, following his gaze. He’s wearing one of Martyn’s coats, a khaki green that actually suits him. “Once the wind stops.”

“I think she bought them from somewhere. They’re like special rocks. For gardens.”

Dan raises his eyebrows. “That’s a thing? We should get some for the balcony.”

Phil smiles and Dan dimples, just the left one, a tiny flash that Phil reaches up to press a fingertip to. He says “I have a suggestion. You can say no, but if you say no I think we should do it anyway.”

“That’s not really a suggestion,” Dan replies, but lightly, leaning his head into Phil’s touch, a little. “What is it?”

“We return the last ones together.”

Dan instantly opens his mouth to say no, Phil can see him forming the word, but he stops, blinks, says “we have to find them first” in a tone that indicates that he thinks Phil already has them.

Phil says, sheepishly almost, “I’ve already got them. Or I know where they are.”

Dan stares at him for what seems like a long time, long enough that Phil drops his hand to look at the ground. Dan says “I thought about this, when I was in Liverpool.”

“That I knew where they were?”

“That and that you’d say we should work together on the last ones.”

Phil says “I’ve hated hiding it from you. You have to know that, I did it for -”

“You barely hid it Phil. I just didn’t want to see it. But, I thought, we’ve spent too long doing that. Hiding things and not saying things. We’re not really great at communicating, for people who spend literally all day speaking to each other.”

“We haven’t spent all day speaking to each other for the last month,” Phil points out.

“Well, _exactly_ ,” Dan replies.

Phil, after a pause, says “is that a yes?”

“If you’re in love with someone you should be comfortable showing them every part of you. Even the bad parts. That’s what I meant in Paris. And you said that liking everything about someone wasn’t realistic, and I guess that’s right too. I _don’t_ like that you always stopped me from talking about it.”

“I don’t like that I did that either. But I don’t like that you always thought it was something you needed to keep me separate from.”

Dan says “I know. I don’t like how messy you are.”

Phil blinks. “I don’t like that you’re always late.”

“I don’t like that you avoid confrontation.”

“I don’t like that plant print sweater. Actually, I hate it.”

Dan dimples, both of them.

“Is that a yes?”

“We don’t have much time” Dan looks out to the sea. “Barely any time at all, in fact. And we can’t do it just the two of us.”

“Is that a _yes_?”

“And if anything goes wrong -”

“ _Dan_.”

“Yes. Okay, it’s a yes.”

~*~

Dan, after they’d spent two days not really leaving Dan’s flat (back when it was just Dan’s flat, rather than their flat), said “maybe we should do this properly. You know, dates and stuff.”

Phil, in the middle of unbuttoning Dan’s shirt, froze, fingers on Dan’s stomach, and said “what, why?”

“It might be better. Instead of just getting straight to…..it might be a good idea to be, you know, like a normal couple.”

“We’re not really a _normal_ couple. Anyway, normalness leads to sadness. Or something.” Phil leant back, a little, so he could see Dan properly. “But, if you think it’s a good idea.”

“I think so. I mean, after this.”

Phil snorted “oh, okay. I’ll be as quick as possible.”

He hadn’t been.

He left the next morning, made it down the three flights of stairs, onto the street, almost to the tube station, before his phone rang and Dan said “actually, stupid idea. I don’t know why I thought of it.”

Phil spun around on the spot, “I’m coming back now.”

“I feel like the chance for us to be a normal couple disappeared a long time ago,” Dan sighed into the phone.

Phil, halfway up the first flight of stairs, said “that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

~*~

“What’s next?”

“I’ve messed up the order.”

Dan ponders the list, and says, decisively, “Modern Rome. Get that one out of the way. It’s in The National, but Louise will help with the -” he waves his hands around “- systems and whatever.” He stops, blinks at Phil, “why are you smiling so much?”

“Nothing. Well, not about _that_ , it’s just -” Phil gestures between them, the two cereal bowls, the anime on the tv, “breakfast. I missed breakfast.”

“You can have breakfast anytime,” Dan says but he’s smiling, Phil knows that he knows what he means.

Phil texts Jack **boreas, successfully returned**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Boreas, amazingly, went missing for 90 years before it randomly appeared for sale in the 1990s. It was bought for £848,000 (or just over a million dollars) and is now owned by a private collector. 
> 
> \- It has never, to my knowledge, been on the Isle of Man. Unless that’s where the private collector is, in which case sorry for blowing your cover :)
> 
> \- There are a couple of art galleries on the Isle of Man; the one here is based, vaguely, on The Isle Gallery. Which has never had any thefts, or anyone trying to return a priceless painting (or if they have, they've never mentioned it!)


	7. 5. modern rome-campo vaccino - j.m.w turner

They spend the morning tidying up the rock garden, picking up the scattered pebbles and plants, arranging them in a way that his mother will surely change as soon as she gets back. Dan is wearing another one of Martyn’s jumpers (a russet colour that heightens the flush in his cheeks) and spends about ten minutes arranging his little corner of stones into a perfect circle, a rescued chrysanthemum in the middle. Phil’s arrangement isn’t quite as neat.

Phil wants to say let’s not leave, let’s stay here forever.

Dan, finally having arranged things to his liking, says “Phil, I have to tell you some stuff.”

Phil, hands full of flowers and stones, wants to ignore this, to pretend Dan never said anything, doesn’t want to be told but also knows he has to be. 

“I said no one had heard from PJ for a while. And that one of Felix’s houses had been raided. You remember?”

“I remember. It was literally two days ago, that you told me that.”

Dan looks surprised (either at himself or the passing of time) for a second, shakes his head back into concentration mode. “They’re together, PJ and Felix, in Italy. Felix thinks that the situation’s a bit…..different from what we thought. Or what he thought."

“What he _told_ us” Phil points out. 

“The new recruit who was actually the gallery owner’s son, you remember?”

“ _Yes_ ” Phil says. He drops his handful of assorted pebbles and petals into the centre of his display, hopes that his mother will give him points for effort, at least. “I was there when he said. I’m not exactly going to forget.”

“He’s maybe not the only one. Or maybe he’s not doing it off his own volition. PJ caught up with him in Barcelona, and -”

“That was the issue in Barcelona that you and Mark were talking about?”

“You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” Dan chides, gently, starting on another corner of the rock garden. “But, yes, that was the issue in Barcelona. And the guy, the son, said something weird about how he hadn’t wanted all the fuss, that the insurance had been enough to fix the damage to the roof, and -”

“You nearly fell through the skylight.”

Dan raises his eyebrows. “That’s right, We were on wires. I hated when we used wires.”

“What was the painting?”

“Reflection of the Big Dipper, which is a beautiful painting, by the way. I love Pollock.” Dan, having lost all track of how he started the conversation, tries to get back to the beginning. “It was a weird job anyway, me and PJ always thought it was. It was too easy; you don’t have many Pollock paintings in the UK but this one was just, I literally picked it off the wall and then went through the roof.”

“And nearly fell through a skylight.”

Dan huffs a laugh, makes a pile of stones into a volcano shape, sticks a daisy in the top. “That was before the actual…..taking of. But there was never anything afterwards, no coverage of it at all. PJ thought the son had been the one to arrange it, which kind of made sense, a little, and -”

Phil says “an insurance job? Like the Degas?”

“Exactly like the Degas. And you know, from the Degas, that they don’t like much fuss afterwards. That’s what he told PJ. That he doesn’t want to be doing this, really, because he doesn’t gain anything from it. And even _I_ thought the pace was pretty steady. I mean, who blackmails someone really slowly, over a couple of weeks?”

“But Felix’s house. Maybe he’s stepping up the pace, now?”

Dan shakes his head. “He didn’t do it. He said he was _told_ one thing, which was to start the thread, start everyone running around returning paintings, plant the initial problem.”

Phil feels like his head is spinning, holds up his hands to get the scenes in order, like he’s in college, cutting things together. “So, just to make sure I’m getting this, there’s _someone else_ running the whole thing? Someone who did the set-up?”

“There’s always someone doing a set-up, Phil. There’s four things that make up a successful team; the set-up, the surveillance, the theft, the escape” Dan holds a finger up for each component. “Nothing happens without the set-up.”

“So, some mysterious person is making you all work off the same set-up? And the set-up is, what exactly?”

Dan leans back on his heels, the knees of his borrowed jeans (again Martyn’s, far baggier than Dan usually likes, and bluer) covered in mud. He gives Phil an encouraging look.

Phil says “to return every piece that Felix owns? To leave him with nothing?”

“Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Felix would never have gotten rid of his stuff if he hadn’t thought something was at risk - and PJ said that they started bringing up Marzia, and -”

“Marzia?” Phil’s heard the name before, once or twice, with no explanation of who she is. 

“Felix’s girlfriend. We really like to use returned paintings as a symbol of love, apparently.” Dan gives Phil a look, up through his eyelashes, and continues with his rock sculpture. “I mean, Felix’s annoyed a lot of people, in the, uh, business.”

“The art stealing business.”

“He had the best” Dan says. “Monopolized the entire market. Someone was always going to cross the line, at some point.”

“But you don’t know who?” Phil watches Dan shake his head. “And what happens now? If there’s no blackmail? Aren’t you just doing exactly what that person wants?”

“You heard what he said. His money’s secure, he’s got a great house in Stockholm, just get rid of everything. It’s really only a few left; the ones we have, PJ’s got one to do. Just a handful, really.”

“But then that doesn’t achieve anything. Felix doesn't get left with nothing. What if you’re misjudging this? You’re trying to assume the thought process of a stranger.” 

Dan says “what else _could_ it be?”

“You just said, getting you all running around returning paintings. All out in the open. That person would only need all the lists. Or, one giant master list.”

“How would one person get all the lists? Only Felix would have that.”

They both stand, survey the tidied garden. Dan’s section is neat, actually looks prettier than it did before. Phil’s section, much like how he wraps presents, is a lot of mess, with random assortments of flowers where he’s tried to cover up said mess.

“It’s endearing!” Phil says, instantly, automatically.

Dan, who likes everything to be symmetrical, in perfect order, except with Phil, who is the one and only exception to his rule, says “I guess it is. A bit.”

~*~

They catch the first ferry back, one that ends up being filled with people apparently trying to escape the Isle of Man. Phil expects there to be a crowd outside the gallery, or at least _something_ to indicate that what happened yesterday actually  did happen and wasn’t just a fever dream on his part but, nothing. 

Dan, petting Phil’s hair (in between saying “I told you that you shouldn’t have drunk all that coffee before we got on”) says “it’s the sensible thing to do, really. Connor’s probably going to wait for someone to find it in amongst the other donations, it looks more random then.”

Phil, lying on his side, head in Dan’s lap, because travel sickness is the _worst_ , says “I guess that makes sense. That’s what I told him, in any case.”

It feels ridiculous, telling Dan these things, and waiting for his opinion, wanting to know if Dan thinks he did a good job, if it’s what Dan would have done. Dan, obviously thinking the same thing, makes a small noise, like a huff, and starts attempting to twirl Phil’s hair into ringlets that never quite hold. 

“They haven’t been _bad_ ” Phil says. “The jobs. They’ve been surprisingly okay, actually. Everyone’s kind of been waiting for me, it feels like.” Melody Carter. Dean. Madame Darbonne. Connor. All waiting for something they'd lost, or in Dean's case, deliberately misplaced.

“You don’t find that strange” Dan asks. “That they were waiting?”

“What, for the paintings? If you lose something that’s important to you I guess you would always be waiting for it. In some way."

Dan looks down at him. “You and your hidden meanings.”

“They’ve just been similar. Is all I’m saying.”

“This one won’t be; it’s different. And we need to do it soon. Felix wants this whole thing, whatever it is, over and done with by, like, _yesterday_.”

“You’re saying Jack gave me the easy ones first?”

Dan takes a while to reply. Phil eventually has to sit up so they can make actual eye contact, his hair standing up on one side. Dan blinks at him. “Jack picked the order? I thought that you did. What was it?”

“Uh, the Monet, the lady with flowers, the piano lesson, and now…..” Phil gestures back over his shoulder to the Isle of Man, disappearing over the horizon. “But I mean, that was out of the order too. I just panicked.” 

“Why? Why that order?” Dan looks increasingly perturbed, he’s frowning so much that the crease between his eyebrows (the one Phil was pretty proud of getting rid of) is back. “What was meant to be next?”

Phil has to get his phone, go back to Jack’s first texts. “After The Piano Lesson? Almond Blossoms. He actually put Modern Rome last.”

Dan says “ _why?_ ” again, keeps running his finger up and down Phil’s phone screen, bouncing the message in place. “He always knew that he had them. The order doesn’t matter.”

Phil shakes his head, even though the _why?_ probably isn’t directed at him. “I never asked. I don’t know if he would have told me, he only really started saying stuff more recently.”

“Stuff like what?” Dan is holding himself in place, as tense as a piano string, as if he’d jump right off the ferry and swim to London if Jack said anything out of turn, anything bad, to Phil. “What did he say?”

“That we’re similar.”

“What, you and _Jack?_ ” Dan shakes his head, as if the conversation is all too much. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.” Dan relaxes, finally, touches his knuckles, once, to Phil’s jaw, skims them right down his chin. “You’re not like anyone. You’re exactly yourself.”

~*~

When they get back, after a pretty awful train journey from Liverpool (where they’d stood the entire way, Phil with his face pressed into the rucksack of the guy in front of them), Mark is still waiting in the flat. He also, apparently, has cooked five casseroles, three lasagnas and two pies.

“I cook when I’m stressed,” Mark says, by way of explanation. He smiles beamingly at Phil but raises his eyebrows at Dan. It’s probably meant to be an are-you-okay-did-it-go-okay-is-he-okay gesture that Phil isn’t supposed to see, but he’s getting the vibe that Mark isn’t great with hidden gestures, the volume turned up to eleven all the time.

“I didn’t mean to stress you,” Phil says, apologetically. “I know I kind of disappeared.”

Mark shrugs. “I’m used to it. And, hey, you left a really informative note.”

(Phil’s note had said _gone away. nothing bad. water the plants. thanks._ )

“Also,” Mark says. “You have a lot of plants.”

Mark has, somehow, revived the begonias, brightening the balcony in cheerful reds and oranges. Phil’s scared to look at them, in case they’ll start withering and browning under his gaze, as most plants are want to do when he’s in the immediate vicinity. He takes a photo on his phone, just to preserve the moment before they realise he’s back and give up again. 

Mark heats up one of the casseroles and they sit, cramped around the breakfast bar while Dan updates him with everything over the past three days (he recalls, word for word, the very last detail of everything that Phil had said in the hallway, blown in with the storm, his hand tangled in the wool of Phil’s jumper).

“Together?” Mark asks. “You’re going to work _together_?”

Mark is too polite to say anything outright but the tone of his voice basically says _are you fucking crazy what the hell_.

“I mean with surveillance and stuff,” Dan says, smoothly. “It’s more about not hiding stuff anymore. And being honest.”

“And you’re doing the Turner next?” 

Dan nods, fork halfway to his mouth. 

Mark says “I was too scared to do that one.”

Phil says “too scared?”

“Not of the painting or, like, the gallery. But just -” Mark looks pensive, his smile (constantly there, or at least a whisper of it) sliding gently into a frown. 

It makes Phil sad to look at him, so he says “this is amazing” gesturing to the casserole with his fork.

Dan, catching on, says “oh, yeah. It’s awesome.”

Mark, not ready to let go of the previous topic yet, lets the smile return to his face and says “Phil, I didn’t know that your parents lived on the Isle of Man.”

“Yeah, they’ve had a house there for a few years.”

“I’ve been there. Once. It’s beautiful."

Jack taking a selfie, deliberately cutting off the other person from the frame, visible only by their arm, around Jack’s shoulders. _We loved our time here, thank you._. 

Phil says “yes. It is."

They’re halfway through second helpings of dinner when Dan says “okay. Let’s see them” and Phil almost says “see what?” because he’s so content for a second, in the complete domesticity of sitting in their kitchen, halfway through a home cooked casserole. He blinks at Dan, as confused as if he’s just woken up from a dream.

Dan says “Phil. Let’s see them.”

~*~

Dan points the paintings out, pauses after each one like Phil is taking notes.

The woman in the chair is Lady Agnew. 

The woman outside the cinema is, obviously, New York Movie. Dan hesitates after that one, turns to look at Phil. “That’s…...did Jack ever tell you anything about these?”

“A little bit. I know _that’s_ the one.” Phil gestures to New York Movie. “I know that they all should have been stolen by Mark, but they weren’t.”

Dan says “that’s right." He looks surprised. “ _Jack_ told you that?”

“Yes. I mean, _eventually_. I still don’t really know what happened. I know that he and Mark, maybe -”

“Not really.” Dan pauses in front of the painting. “I can’t believe he told you that. Jack isn’t exactly that forthcoming with details.”

“He said he only worked with Mark.”

Dan nods. “A little. Mainly just on these. Jack was…...he kind of appeared out of nowhere, and in a few months he’d stolen, like, quadruple what anyone else ever had. Most of it Felix didn’t even ask for. I think I said that before, his success rate was something else.”

The canvas covered in a mess of paint is Lavender Mist. Dan sighs at it, happily, while Phil frowns, not really understanding it. It looks, in all its chaotic glory, like something Dan would hang in their bedroom. 

Dan points to the Roman landscape last of all. “Modern Rome. Campo Vaccino.”

The painting is beautiful, sprawling hills of ruins covered in mist, the whole thing shimmering,like the surface would ripple if he reached out to touch it. If Phil was actually selecting favourites from the returned works so far then this would be number one. It’s calming to look at, even if it doesn’t seem to make Dan very calm.

“It’s expensive” is all he’ll say. “Like, _ridiculously_ expensive.”

It’s also in a huge gold brocade frame, which Dan refuses point blank to remove it from. 

Phil says “maybe we should do another one next?”

“No, this one.” Dan sighs. “This is just…… you must have read about it. It happened just after…..” his voice trails off. 

This is usually the point where Phil will jump in, interrupt so that Dan doesn’t have to finish his sentence, but this is a whole new stage, one where they actually use words and such, so he waits until Dan, finally, takes a deep inhale and says:

“Just after Manchester. Like, a week or so.”

“I don’t remember. And I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to read any articles about a stolen painting at that point anyway.”

His tone is light but Dan winces, a little, anyway. 

Phil says “when you say expensive, how expensive do you mean?”

“I’m not telling you. It’s better that you don’t know.” 

Later, in tour guide mode, he says “there’s a sun and a moon in it, look. The moon is rising on the left, and the sun is setting on the right.”

Phil says “like Llama in Meadow. That had stars and the sun. Remember?”

“You’re asking me if I remember what Llama in Meadow looks like?” Dan looks incredulous. “Because, I _remember_. That painting is engrained on my brain, forever.” When Phil smiles at him, he adds “engrained on my _soul_.”

“On your heart you mean” Phil says, still staring at Modern Rome. “When do you want to do it?”

Dan, very reluctantly, drawing the words out as if to lose all meaning. “Really soon. Like, _really_ soon. We can’t leave them in here, we can’t leave Almond Blossoms on our mantlepiece.”

Almond Blossoms will be last. Phil knows this, has known this since he saw the look on Dan’s face when he saw it. He nods, tries to do so stoically, like he’s _not_ filled with utter panic, like he’s _not_ seeing every possible worst case scenario. “Hey, you remember what Llama in Meadow was originally called, right?”

Dan looks at him, a breath away from saying _come ON, Phil_ because last time he said this they were in the Tate, Dan with a balaclava around his neck, about to take Llama in Meadow off the wall, about to throw an entire job just so that he could give Phil the choice to come back. To stay.

“It was called The Ways In Which We Show Love Without Realising,” Dan says, finally.

“I would have called it The Things We Do When We Love Someone, personally” Phil replies, which is another thing Dan had said, across the white marble floors of the Tate’s studio rooms. 

Dan laughs, says something that sounds like “you _utter dork_ ”, delightedly, and kisses him so hard that they nearly fall into the painting, nearly shatter the whole reflective surface of Modern Rome.

~*~

They meet Louise for afternoon tea. She’s wearing a flower print skirt and perfume that smells like sherbet, sugary sweet. She saves a seat as far from the door, and tables of old ladies, as possible, waves at them from behind a stand covered in piles of tiny cakes. Phil is at least polite enough to pause and say “hi Louise” before he grabs a handful. Dan just takes one, has to hold it above his head to save it from being squashed when she hugs him.

“Oh Dan,” she says, three times, each with a slightly more maternal tone.

Dan allows himself to be hugged, awkwardly patting her on the back, before disentangling himself to sit down. “So, how have -”

“I have a plan,” Louise says, instantly, to both of them. “But you’re not going to like it” to Dan.

Dan, tiny cake looking even tinier in his massive hand, says “why?” 

“We haven’t got enough time to do any of our……” she stops, flicks her eyes to Phil. “Any of our usual plans.”

“The ones where you get jobs in the galleries?” Phil asks. “Is that what you mean?”

“Mostly that. Sometimes different. You know that it has to be soon? Like, tomorrow soon.”

Dan says “well, I _know_ that. We literally need to do an in-and-out job, I wasn’t expecting -”

“They’re not your strong point though, Dan” Louise’s voice is gentle and coaxing, like she’s preparing herself to give bad news. “Are they? You’re more… slow paced. In my experience.”

Dan says “hey, I did a few.”

“One where you nearly fell through a skylight, one where you cut through a Degas, the one where you smashed through a champagne fountain….”

Dan sighs, longsufferingly. “So, the plan?”

“We don’t do much in the National, you know that. It’s tricky, with it being right on Trafalgar Square, and also _massive_. There’s no way you can get the Turner back to where it came from originally, the room’s right in the top corner of the gallery. And, also, all the security, and the alarms, and the -”

Dan’s fist closes around the cake, crumbs scattering everywhere, “I know that it’s difficult. That’s why I picked it for now.”

“There’s no possible way you could do it as one person, just you. Once you get in there, it’s really easy for the guards to pin you in one room.”

Dan’s jaw is clenched so hard that Phil is amazed that he’s actually able to form words when, eventually, he says “what are you saying?”

“You remember what Caspar and Joe used to do, sometimes, if -”

Dan says “no. Absolutely not.”

“What did Caspar and Joe used to do?” Phil asks. 

“Caspar and Joe look kind of similar” Louise says. “They worked together, on jobs, and they’d wear the same clothes, so from a distance they looked almost identical. Because you know, they’re the same height, and -”

“I’m taller than Phil,” Dan interjects.

“Not by _much_. And, anyway, it always worked on jobs, because it confused people. Guards chase one, alarms start going off somewhere else, guards try and split up, everyone gets confused except the two of them. As long as you’ve got a route planned, and I’ve got the layout and everything here, it can’t -”

“And it worked?” Phil says. “It used to work?”

Dan makes a strangled sort of noise, and finally drops the crushed remains of his cake onto the table. “You can’t be serious. He doesn’t have enough _time_ , to do this tomorrow. You can’t be-”

Louise says “yes, it works. And, Dan, it’s the _National_ , there’s going to be security on you instantly, what exactly do you want to happen?”

“I was thinking he could stay outside with you. I was thinking he could help with the surveillance. I don’t want him in there.”

“Well, neither do _I_ but what can we do? There’s not much  time.”

Phil thinks of his mother, approaching Dan from behind (wearing one of Phil’s jackets, hood up), thinking it was Phil. Dan’s mother coming into the living room on Christmas, halfway through a sentence, then jumping with her hands to her chest, saying _sorry, I thought you were Dan_. It’s an easy mistake to make, they’re the same build, same hair but different colours, Dan is a tiny bit taller but who would notice that, really?

Phil says “I can do it. It sounds like something I could do, anyway. As long as you tell me where I need to go.”

Louise smiles at him. “I’ll do that, Phil. I have a route planned, and everything. It’s like a dance routine, that’s what I always used to say to Dan, you just need to learn the steps.”

Phil, in his head, says _but I’m a terrible dancer_. Outloud, weakly, he says “well, luckily, I’m filled with rhythm.”

Louise laughs, politely. 

Dan, who has seen Phil dance, who has to keep a hand on Phil’s elbow most days to stop him from walking into something, who answers every smash, crash, bang in their flat with _Phil, what have you done?_ , doesn’t laugh.

~*~

The National is a rectangle maze of rooms, with a hall in the centre. Some of the rooms are closed, some are circular in shape. They all link into each other, in a never ending loop, he and Dan could start at separate sides and meet in the middle.

Louise has drawn two routes, one blue and one black. Phil doesn’t have to ask which one is him and which one is Dan. They start in a closed room above the central hall and then go in opposite directions, black dots down and blue dots up and left. Both head to the Sainsbury Wing, which juts off to the left, down a flight of stairs.

“You can run straight down here” Louise says. “There’s a theatre, but then some stairs. From there you’re straight onto Trafalgar Square; if it’s busy and you hit crowds, which you will because it’s _always_ busy, then perfect. Wear black hoodies and hats, once you’re in the crowd then they’re easy to whip off. Wear bright colours underneath.”

Phil looks at his blue dots, spinning and sidestepping through all the rooms, colliding with the black dots again, flying around them. He presses his thumb to each black dot with his finger, and when he says “okay” his voice is small. 

“I’ll meet you. Somewhere nearby.”

Dan, traces the blue dots with his fingertip, says “I must be the same height as someone else. I mean, how tall is Alfie? Me and PJ are pretty similar, I think, what about Mark?”

Mark would do it, Phil knows, but Mark is a good few inches shorter than both of them. And also goes to the gym regularly. 

Louise says “Dan” with some degree of finality. “Even if Mark wasn’t, like, a foot shorter than you, he’s not great at the on the ground stuff, you know that.”

“There must be some other way” Dan says, but without much conviction. They all know that there isn’t.

~*~

Phil leaves Dan and Louise alone for the last ten minutes. Dan had brought a notebook with him that Phil isn’t supposed to know the contents of (he can guess. He imagines that it’s another plan, one for Louise, about just what to do with Phil if Dan gets caught).

When Dan comes back he says “so, to the National?”, pale faced and chewing on his bottom lip, which he only does when he’s nervous. “We may as well do a walkthrough now. Seeing as how we’re doing it _tomorrow_.”

He’s not holding the notebook anymore. Phil doesn’t ask where it went.

~*~

They don’t go to art galleries together normally, for obvious reasons. Aside from a party in Manchester, and the brief meeting in the Tate, weeks ago. They should, Phil thinks, maybe do it more often: try and turn it into a more positive thing, or at least give Dan the opportunity to share more of his art knowledge (no matter how he obtained it). 

They’ve certainly never been to a art gallery together when Dan is scoping the place out for a job. It’s slightly disconcerting, the way his eyes sweep around all the rooms, trying to identify problems, making a mental note of the cameras, working out where the guards are standing. 

Phil, attempting to keep the mood light, says “hey, isn’t that the painter that you like?” and points to a huge canvas of what, to him, looks like a mess of nothingness. “The Lavender Mist one?” - to Phil, the painting looks identical to Lavender Mist, like someone’s thrown a load of paint around and claimed that it looks like _something_.

Dan blinks, starry eyed, and says “that’s Reflection of the Big Dipper.”

The card next to it says: 

Reflection of the Big Dipper will be shown at this gallery for a period of three weeks, after it was gifted by the Scottish National Gallery. It was missing for three years, after a theft which also caused damage to the gallery itself.

(“It was just a skylight," Dan says.)

The painting mysteriously reappeared a month ago, when it was delivered via courier to the gallery owner. The Scottish National intend to send it on a tour of the UK, in celebration of its safe return.

Phil says “huh. Who had your list?”

“I have _lists_ Phil. Probably about four lists, me and PJ combined” he doesn’t look away from the painting. “I think I told you. I know that Caspar had one quarter of it, but maybe not this one.”

“It’s good though, that it’s here?” Phil is shaking a little, on the spot. He can feel it. “I mean, that means that your, uh, _things_ are getting returned?”

Dan shrugs.

“Are you not keeping up-to-date with it?” Phil keeps his voice even, so not to attract attention. “Because I really think that -”

“Watch that vase,” Dan interrupts, smoothly. “It’s by the door on your side. Try not to bump into it.”

The vase is, frankly, in a very unsafe place. Phil says “noted. Don’t dodge the question.”

“I’m keeping up-to-date with it. But, I mean, I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“What other things could possibly be as important as that?”

Dan gives him a long look, a look that says _seriously?_

Phil says “oh.”

They split up at the closed room, the Sunley Room, where the painting will be left, a neat little yellow sign on the door, and walk through their respective routes, Dan having set the timers on both of their phones. Phil’s is simpler than Dan’s, probably an obvious choice on Louise’s part; up into the room above and then left. He has less rooms to deal with, less obstacles and less on show.

Dan has to go down, out into the open of the main hall, and then double-back on himself. Phil gets to the Sainsbury Wing entrance first, exactly fifteen seconds before Dan does. He knows because he spends all fifteen of those seconds staring at his phone screen, watching the numbers tick over.

Dan, when he arrives, says “don’t stand out in the open. You need to be running down there, to the Square. You can’t stand and wait here for me.”

Phil wants to say _if you’re not here in fifteen seconds, exactly fifteen seconds, I’m coming back for you_ but Dan already seems pretty agitated, so instead he says ““I can wait somewhere here for you. Security do a second sweep, I could hide and then -” 

Dan sounds doubtful. “Will they?”

“You’re supposed to do a second full sweep of the place, before you go outside, or into another area” Phil replies, reciting from memory. “They gave us a training manual, at the Tate. If we hide, somewhere, then we could come out when they’re doing the second sweep. We could leave together” his voice lilts up but it’s not quite a question, more him asking for approval, it’s a good idea, right Dan? It’ll work?

Dan appears to consider this but then shakes his head “no. I don’t want you waiting anywhere in here on your own. Spend those fifteen seconds getting outside. Wait for me there.”

“But then I’ll be out of here before you.”

“That’s the _idea_ ,” Dan says.

Dan makes Phil walk his route again, walks it with him. When Phil almost walks into the vase, they walk through again. Then Dan makes him walk on his own. Then both of them again. It’s only four rooms really (Spain to Rubens to Claude and Turner to Venice and then out). Dan hesitates in the Turner room, which has four exits. He doesn’t quite say _Phil, you’ll remember the exit, right?_ but it’s written all over the pale anxiousness of his face. 

“It’s the fourth exit” Phil says, almost proudly, look I’ve done my revision and everything. “I’ll remember.”

“You’ll remember for tomorrow,” Dan tells him, not a question. “You have to remember.”

~*~

Neither of them sleep much, the night before. The night of. Dan says things but, like old times, they’re all mumbled against Phil’s skin, which brings all sorts of past feelings and has Phil pulling against his hair to get him to just _come up here_ and to _stop that_.

Dan says “tell me your route.”

Phil, patiently, recites “Spain to Rubens to Claude and Turner to Venice and then out.”

“Tell me which exit from Claude and Turner.”

“The fourth,” Phil says. “I won’t forget.”

When Dan kisses him it’s the same urgent way that he did years ago, when he was pressing Phil amongst the magnets of his Manchester fridge door (instead of their mattress), like he couldn’t help himself, like he couldn’t wait one second longer, like it had been months, years, of build-up instead of a few weeks; biting at his lips, leaving crescent moon printers where his fingers had been. Kissing Dan used to feel like they’d met before and now he’d come back, but now that feeling is based in actual experience, and Dan isn’t just out of Phil’s reach anymore.

At some point, Phil curls over Dan, so their noses are nearly touching, says “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Dan, flushed, hair curling, a second away from saying _hurry up_ because he wants the pace quicker, keeps trying to make it more urgent when Phil is trying to slow down. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere” his hands on Phil’s collarbone, where they always naturally seem to end up, whether there’s a shirt or not.

He pulls back a little, taps a finger to Phil’s forehead, draws it right down to the tip of his nose. Phil goes cross eyed from trying to follow. Dan laughs, a huffed breath against Phil’s mouth, and says “I’m here. I’m right here.”

There are fingertip bruises on Phil’s shoulders, the tops of his arms, from clinging that Dan probably isn’t even aware of. He says “well, me too. And we’ll both be here tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s the idea,” Dan says, with a degree of finality, before pushing up and flipping them over, settling himself in Phil’s lap, hands into his hair. “Now, stop thinking.”

“ _You_ stop thinking” Phil chides back, turning his face into Dan’s palm. 

They do. Just not for very long. 

Later, after, Dan says “tell me your route.”

Phil raises an eyebrow incredulously but replies “Spain” kiss to the space underneath Dan’s ear “to Rubens” his dimple, right side “to Claude and Turner” his dimple, left side “to Venice” the corner of his mouth “and then out” lips pressed between Dan’s eyebrows.

~*~

The next morning Dan says “okay, some ground rules. If I get caught, then leave. I mean it. You know how to get out, right?” he taps at the floor plan. “If I get caught then I’m going to make a complete commotion so everyone will come to me. That’ll give you time to…” he makes his index finger bounce happily through the rooms, into the supply closet, pause, then out of the exit. “Go and find Louise."/p>

Phil watches Dan reach the end of the plan, hovering in the blank space outside of the gallery, and flatly replies “nope.”

“Phil.”

“You can’t be serious. I’m not doing that.”

“What good does both of us getting caught do? You can’t make some big gesture and come back for me.”

“So, if I get caught then you’re leaving me, right?”

Dan says “that’s different.”

“You said that you never get caught, anyway, so…..”

“I got caught once,” Dan says. “When I was distracted.”

Phil wants to make a joke about how this is, somehow, too big a conversation for breakfast, too serious for when he’s wearing cookie monster pyjamas and eating chocolate cereal (which tastes of cardboard all of a sudden). He says “Dan, if you get caught then they’re bound to put your photo up, somewhere. All of those people, they’ll remember you.”

Dan makes a disbelieving noise. “Uh, I think not. I have a very forgettable face.”

Phil answers with an equally disbelieving noise because Dan’s face is the exact opposite. Phil had memorised every dimple, every freckle, every shade of brown in his eyes from the first moment he met him. “Just because you try and stay out of people’s way doesn’t mean they don’t _notice_ you. Everyone notices you.”

Dan says “Phil, if I get caught then leave. I’ve made some arrangements with Louise, she’ll know what to do. You need to promise before we go.”

Phil can only assume that the arrangements were what the ten minutes extra conversation were about. He frankly doesn’t want to hear anything more about them. He says “no” with as much aggression as he can muster. 

Dan throws his hands in the air, exasperated, “you promised in the Tate. Before Paris.”

“I _lied_ ” Phil replies, equally so. “I would never have left you. I had no intention of doing it. I would never leave you.”

Dan says, voice small, “Phil, you have to promise.”

“I’ll promise if _you_ do.”

Dan flinches (like he’s reacting to a punch) and, after a pause, says “no.”

“Then, no. Also no.”

Dan says “Phil, please” in a low tone that Phil both feels and hears. 

“If you get caught then all of those people will remember you. Those people at the bar, _they_ remembered you. Don’t be modest about it.”

Dan holds out his hand. “Phil, if you don’t promise then I’m doing it on my own. And you heard what Louise said.”

Phil, horrified, says “that’s unfair. That’s a completely unfair thing to say.”

Dan says “I know” and genuinely means it. “But. Please.”

Phil reaches, slowly shakes Dan's hand and just says “I promise.”

It’s good enough for Dan, who smiles weakly, drops a kiss to Phil’s wrist. He either doesn’t notice, or chooses to ignore, that Phil didn’t say exactly _what_ he was promising.

~*~

Dan and Mark argue for a while about how best to transport the painting and its huge frame. Mark says that they should cut it out because the National will, apparently, “have a fuckload of these brocade things, Dan, it’s _fine_ ”, but then both of them are too scared to do it.

(Phil offers but Mark looks horrified and Dan says something like _ohmigod NO_ which Phil can admit is fair. He can’t even tear off cling film in a straight line, which most of the people in the room have witnessed)

“But it’s huge,” Mark says. “There’s just no way. You may as well carry it in a box with THIS IS A PAINTING written on it.”

They try it in every box they have in the flat. It would fit without the frame, possibly, but (as it is) ends up being both too large for anything and too heavy for Dan or Phil to lift, even combined. Mark, of course, lifts it easily, under one arm. 

It’s Mark who, surprisingly, finally mentions the elephant in the room and gets straight to the point of “you should ask Jack. He stole it in the first place.”

Dan, rummaging around in their knife drawer (having apparently lost patience), jumps and clangs all of their cutlery together. It sounds like a cymbal smash. “I don’t know if -”

“I can phone him,” Phil says.

~*~

Jack sounds distracted. More so than usual. He says “oh, okay. You’re doing Modern Rome next. I would have saved it for last.”

Phil, somehow, knows that Dan wants to save Almond Blossoms for last. Or even to keep it forever. He says “ _we’re_ doing it. Both of us.” 

“He agreed to that? You’re going to be there?”

The second question sounds odd, to Phil, catches him off guard. “What at the gallery?”

“Nevermind, just be careful” Jack sighs. “Anyway, the frame. You have to cut it out. That’s not even the original frame, I think I stole it from somewhere. It _was_ in a frame but, I mean, it’s pointless. They’ll have another. There’s no way you’ll be able to get it in there otherwise.”

“But what if we damage it?”

“Phil” Jack says. “I cut it out of the frame in six seconds while alarms were going off and half of the National’s security were trying to kick the door down and Mark was in my earpiece yelling at me to…...you’ll have plenty of time.”

They’re about to hang up when Phil, cautiously, because he still isn’t sure if he and Jack are friends or not, what exactly the whole dynamic here is, asks “are you okay?”

“Me? Of course, always” Jack is all fake cheeriness (and Phil can recognise false cheeriness from a mile away). “I just thought that, maybe, once it was out in the open that Dan would do these things himself.”

“We’re not doing that anymore” Phil replies. “Doing things by ourselves.”

“I think that’s very lax of him” Jack says. “He’s not taking you on the actual job though?”

Phil doesn’t answer that.

Jack sighs and says “the National do a two sweep rule, which means -”

“I know what that is. And we won’t need to cut it out of the frame when people are kicking down the door, so I think we can manage it. And without Mark yelling at us to…….” Phil hesitates. “What was Mark yelling at you to do?”

“To stop” Jack replies. “Be safe Phil, I’ll try and help.”

He hangs up in the middle of Phil saying _to STOP?_

~*~

Dan and Mark play three rounds of Mario Kart to work out who gets to cut the painting from the frame. Dan wins, obviously.

Mark orders them out of the room while he does it because, apparently, he can’t deal with the extra pressure of being watched. Phil grabs Dan’s sleeve and pulls him all the way out onto the balcony, as far from watching Mark as possible. 

Dan leans on the railing and pokes at the begonias. He says “I never did bring you plants back from Berlin. But, I mean, I left in a bit of a rush.”

“Next time. We’ll go there together” Phil looks down into the lock, where he’d debated throwing the Monet. “Did you ever know much about what happened with Jack and Mark?”

Dan shakes his head. “I only met Jack a few times. And I only really spent proper time with Mark when he came to London for the llama. I mean, he had a girlfriend. A girl who owned a gallery. I’ve never asked but I’m sure that he’s with her now.”

“You never asked?”

“Our communication skills are lacking, Phil. You know this.” Dan smiles at him. “If it _was_ romantic, then I’m pretty sure it was just on Jack’s side. I know they met on New York Movie, and I know that they did a couple more after that. But then Jack went out on his own. For whatever reason.”

“So why does Jack only have one list?”

“One list with _Felix_. He takes jobs from everyone. His actual _lists_ are probably huge” Dan tilts his head to one side. “I know you’ve spent a lot of time with him and he’s helped you…” _helped_ is said with some reluctance. “But I always thought that his loyalty was lacking. A bit.”

Mark says “finished”, his voice so loud that he may as well be out on the balcony with them.

~*~

The painting, released from its frame, fits perfectly in a huge plastic folder that Phil had used, back in uni, to transport slides and equipment. It’s clumbersome to carry but Dan says that he’ll be the one to do that, with absolutely no room for discussion.

Mark wraps it neatly in brown paper, giving a respectful pat once the whole scene is covered. 

Phil wears a bright blue shirt, with a heart print; he lends Dan one of his red shirts (a plaid, with bonus dinosaurs) because he likes Dan in red, likes him in most colours really. Dan, obviously, provides the black jackets, black jeans and black shoes.

In full outfits, with hats on, Phil can admit they look quite similar.

“Okay” Dan says, convincing himself that things actually are. “Okay.”

Mark hugs Phil at the door, hugs him right off his feet. “I’ll be in the Square, you know, if you need me” he mimes turning to his side, shouldering some invisible person out of the way. “I’ll make it look natural.”

~*~

They buy tickets at four o’clock, standing in different queues and attempting to not make eye contact. Dan had said, on the tube, that it was important to not give away that they know each other, that they should avoid looking at one another, so Phil had tried to get all of that out of his system on the walk over here, had pressed Dan against the freezing stone wall, amongst the LED fountains, and tried to memorise him with his hands (no need, everything is already committed to memory) while Dan whimpered against his mouth.

It hadn’t worked. Dan is never out of his system in the same way that Phil can never stop looking at him. In a room of hundreds they still spin into each other (black and blue dots on a floor plan, intertwining) like no one else is even there.

Dan doesn’t look awkward carrying the painting. He nonchalantly keeps it at his side, not even glancing down at it once and, as a result, no one else looks at it either. It may as well not be there. He’s tagged on, casually, to a group of tourists having a guided tour and nods along to what the guide is saying even though he probably knows more. Watching him at work (for want of a better phrase) is an odd experience that Phil wasn’t expecting.

He feels the need to sit down and does so in front of Reflection of the Big Dipper, re-reads _a theft which also caused damage to the gallery itself_.

When the group circle behind him he feels a hand pat his left shoulder, then lightly trace across his shoulder blades. He glances over to see Dan, pretending to try and get his phone out of his pocket, and having apparently lost balance. “Oh,” Dan says “excuse me” but his eyes are saying _is everything alright?_

Phil says “that’s okay” politely, attempting to sound like he’s speaking to a stranger. 

Dan looks up at the Pollock and says “hey, that’s my favourite too. Everyone else always walks straight past it.”

Phil has no response. He thinks _seriously how I can pretend to not know you when you SAY stuff like that_ and tries to laugh. It comes out as more of a sigh. He says “I mostly just like all the blue.” 

Dan’s eyes soften and shimmer, like they’re going to overspill with tears and feelings and memories and whatever kind of play they’re going through.

Phil quirks a weak smile at him and raises an eyebrow as if to say _you may as well finish it off now._

Dan says “well that’s fine too. I like blue.”

His adopted tourist group starts filing out of the room and Dan lets his hand linger on Phil’s shoulder (thumb on the curve of his neck) for a few seconds longer before he follows.

~*~

The job itself starts just after six, when the gallery closes and staff do a brief walk through the building, collecting any stragglers. While this is going on Phil is in a cupboard near the closed Sunley Room where (true to Louise’s word) “no one comes to clean because the room’s closed. What’s the point?”, squashed under a shelf that’s too low to accommodate his height, with Dan splayed completely across his chest, chin hooked over Phil’s shoulder. Dan had said that this was so that, if they were discovered early, they could pretend that they’d just snuck off for some privacy. Except Dan’s clinging to him slightly too tightly for that to be the only reason.

“Be safe,” Dan mumbles in his ear. “And, I swear, this is the first and last time we’re ever doing this.”

“Hey,” Phil murmurs back. “I could be a natural. This could be the start -”

“Don’t joke about it. I’m not ready to joke about it yet. Save them all for afterwards.”

The Sunley Room is closed “for preparations” - it sounds ominous but Louise is convinced that the gallery staff use it for secret parties. It’s been closed for months but not securely so, the doors are never locked and it is, apparently, usually a hideout for teenagers escaping boring school trips.

(or twentysomethings trying to return a priceless painting)

Dan counts five minutes, tapping them out along Phil’s jawline, Phil presses the other five in kisses to Dan’s face (forehead, nose, cheeks, chin). They hear heavy footsteps on the floor below, around the main entrance. Locking up. 

Dan says “stay here” in a breath of air against Phil’s neck and then is gone, taking the folder with him. 

Phil hadn’t realise how much he was leaning on him, how much of his weight Dan was holding up, until he’s left and Phil is stumbling forward, like he’s missed a step on the stairs. He counts out three minutes, like he’s supposed to, taking a beat before each second. 

Dan comes back halfway through minute two, sans painting, returns to his previous pose. He says “done. They’re on their way back up, knew it wouldn’t take long downstairs."

Louise texts to say _ten guards. One possibly already in the building? Eleven of them keyed in anyway. You didn’t trip the alarms yet_.

“That’s good, right?” Phil whispers. Maybe they don’t need to split up, maybe they can run out together, maybe they can camp in this cupboard all night, it would be cosy, he could stand like this forever -

Dan shakes his head, hair fluttering against Phil’s cheek. “They’ll set the laser alarms, soon. We can’t be here for that.” He shifts a little, so his ear is pressed to the door. 

_Just coming up main vestibule, going right, like I thought. I’ll text when they’re in Room 34._

“You’re ready?” Dan breathes. 

Phil swallows, hard, and says “yes.”

“Good because I’m not” Dan looks up, cups both of his hands to Phil’s face, gently, like he’s cradling the most priceless canvas imaginable. “I’ll meet you at the fountains in exactly fifty seconds.”

Dan says it lightly (as though they’re arranging a date) but Phil can’t match his tone and says “I’ll meet you anywhere” (as though they’re about to be separated forever).

Dan’s facade cracks. “Phil.”

_Room 34._

Dan moves his hands to Phil’s shoulders, presses down, pulls at his shirt collar, underneath his sweater. “I’m going to count to four. One -”

Phil takes a breath. I love you.

“Two”

I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.

“Three” 

I’ll meet you anywhere.

“Four. Fuck.” Dan pushes at Phil’s shoulders, turns him, kisses the back of his neck and says “be there waiting for me. I mean it. Or I’ll -”

They’re out of the supply cupboard. Dan gives Phil a solid shove left, seeing him safely through the top door, spins on the toes of his sneakers (Phil thinks _or you’ll what?_ ) and runs through the door into the Central Hall, setting off the Hall alarms instantly.

Phil stumbles into the Spain room, sets off the alarms there as soon as he crosses through the doorway. It’s a horrible, shrill sound that sounds like an entire flock of birds chasing him, he resists the urge to press his hands to his ears as he runs on, into Rubens.

~*~

The Rubens room is really three interconnected hexagon shapes with heavy red wallpaper that Phil hasn’t got time to stop and admire. The alarms here are deeper, like the bass section of a really awful orchestra, one that he can hear Dan adding the rhythm to as he sets off the alarms across the vestibule.

The plan appears to be working, at least. He can hear security shouting to each other, confused, as alarms set off in no particular pattern, unsure of what direction to go in. He wants to shout _Dan, it’s working!_ , almost laughs, as ridiculous as that would be, _we’re doing it, it’s actually working!_

All the figures in Rubens’ paintings look disapproving, either glaring or with their eyes cast upwards like they can’t even watch what’s going on. One of the painted women has a hand clasped to her cheek, utterly scandalised. Phil almost wants to apologise to her. 

Phil neatly sidesteps the vase Dan had told him to watch and so trips on into Claude and Turner. A tiny room with four exits, one for each painting, two for each artist, Dan saying _Turner gave these to the National as long as they promised to always hang them with the Claude paintings_ , heavy red wallpaper again, Phil slips and presses his gloved fingertips to it. 

Dan saying but not saying _Phil, you’ll remember the exit, right?_

_Be there waiting for me_

Of course I will, Phil thinks, to both, and takes the third exit.

~*~

He instantly knows he’s gone wrong, somewhere. For one, there’s no other doorway out of the room. There’s no Venice. Just a lot of paintings of ships and, oddly, windmills. The alarms here sound almost like sails, heavy swooping sounds that overpower the entire space.

Phil, hysterically, thinks you messed up you messed up what do you do now _fuck_. He can’t go back to Claude and Turner, the alarms are going off, clear as chiming bells, the guards must be nearly there. 

He runs up, into another sailing room, then into a room full of flower paintings (which he would really appreciate, under other circumstances). There are so many alarms going off now that he can’t tell the difference, it’s impossible to realise, or will be impossible for _Dan_ to realise, that there are too many, that he’s gone wrong. 

From his muddled memory of the floorplan he’s sure that he could loop back around, possibly. There must be a way. A cupboard that he could hide in, but the alarms, all the alarms, a symphony of alarms, a bread trail leading everyone to exactly where he is. 

He hits the long sunken room which houses the French paintings, looks down to see a guard coming through the bottom door, exit number one from the Claude and Turner room. The guard is smaller than Phil, a little slighter, he looks up and sees Phil instantly.

Phil makes a choked noise (is it a scream, who knows? He’s not scared not exactly, just horribly disappointed in himself, scared for Dan because where is Dan, now? Where are the rest of the guards?) and runs in exactly the same direction that he came from, like he’s the heroine of a horror film, watching himself and yelling _don’t go back into the house you idiot_

The guard chases him and, with the added pressure, Phil trips because of course he does, _Phil, what have you done?_ , lands on his knees and stumbles over his own hands as he tries to push himself up. He slides along the wooden floor, presses his back to the red wallpaper and looks up.

If he’s going to get arrested he supposes it’s only fitting that it’s in the flower painting room. 

The guard enters a few seconds after, reluctantly, like he didn’t even want to give chase in the first place, takes off his fancy National Gallery cap, giving Phil a better view of his face. His eyes. The off green tinge to his hair.

~*~

_“Phil can I ask you something? You don’t know me. You know nothing about me, and yet you’ve only asked once why I’m helping you. Once. I call you, asking you to meet me, and you come, every time. By yourself. You don’t even question me. I’ve put you in two potentially dangerous situations and you just keep…...coming back. How trusting can one person be? How naive can one person be?”_

~*~

Phil freezes.

He thinks of something Dan said, back on the Isle of Man, knee deep in mud, rearranging a destroyed garden, _we really like to use returned paintings as a symbol of love_

Jack says “oh. Hi Phil.”

Someone from outside shouts “anything in there?”

Jack yells “no, all clear here” in a weird attempt at a Northern accent, as if he’s trying to sound like Phil, and then, dropping his voice, “get the fuck out, Phil. This was a stupid thing for you to do. I never even thought that Dan would agree to this.” He holds his hand out, to help Phil up.

Phil, leaving him faltering in mid air, says “it’s you. The set-up, it’s you. _You’re_ the one ,who -”

Jack, exasperated, says “of _course_ it’s me. I slipped up so many times with you, Phil, you and your stupid innocent face, and how much you wanted to _help_ , you were so easy and I felt bad about it, okay, what I said to you in Paris was the truth, but now you need to go.”

In Paris, in a tiny Mini, bouncing over cobbled streets, while Jack said _all for Mark, just a never-ending list of stuff for Mark, of me going, look what I got for you, and him……_

Or now, Phil supposes, _look at what I’m doing for Mark, look at what I’ve done for you._

It’s not even about Felix. It never was.

“Is this all for attention?” he says. “Is this all so that he’ll notice you, or something?”

Jack says “Phil, I’m not telling you again. If you don’t get up and go I’m calling the rest of the guys back in here.”

Phil says “wait, where’s Dan?”

The plan. He knew he’d forget the plan. Filled with rhythm, as if. Stupid lack of coordination, stupid clumsiness. They were supposed to keep the guards in two separate groups, but if he’s now here with one guard, then the rest must be -

“Where’s Dan?”

Jack’s face softens, a little bit. “This life isn’t for you Phil, it’s easier this way, for all of us, I just want everything out in the open. You can go back to your uni, and your flat, and -”

“Where’s Dan?” Phil sounds hysterical, he knows, he’s almost reaching the pitch of the alarms. “If you’re here then where are the other ten?” Was it ten? He can’t remember? How many others? “Where is he?”

Jack says “I just wanted to make sure that they didn’t catch _you_ , is all. Look, we have to -”

Is fifteen seconds is long enough to cause a diversion? Jack leans forward, arm outstretched, to pull Phil off the floor. Phil looks at him, properly, the National security uniforms are nicer than the Tate’s, in any case, softer looking wool in a dove grey that makes Jack’s eyes look bluer, wider. His name badge says Sean.

Jack blinks, follows Phil’s eyeline and says “I’ll explain. All of it. I promise. Just -”

Phil says “where is he?”

“Think about yourself for once Phil, he’s probably halfway out the exit by now. I _knew_ what the plan would be, Louise is so predictable, and it’s just -”

~*~

_”And your sense of self preservation is pretty poor.”_

~*~

Phil opens his mouth and makes a huge screech, the same piercing shriek that he makes when he’s annoying Dan with an impression of the noise his goose stress relaxer makes ( _why do you even have this?_ Dan would say, acting annoyed but also fond, so fond, laughing into the palm of his hand, the type of laugh that only Phil gets to see.)

Jack says “Phil, what the fu-”, his hand still frozen in mid air. 

Phil shrieks again, louder, as loud as he possibly can. His voice cracks somewhere in the middle.

It’s answered by a whole crowd of approaching footsteps. Probably about ten people, if Phil was to make a guess.

“You idiot” Jack says. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Letting him out of the basement,” Phil replies. All the basements. Always.

Somewhere in Trafalgar Square he supposes, or hopes Dan has just stumbled down the steps, wearing a borrowed shirt in a colour that Phil wishes he’d wear more often, wondering where Phil is, wondering why this has to be the one time that he can’t pick Phil out of a crowd of hundreds. He can almost hear Dan panicking, thinking _where are you where are you where -_

Someone, to Jack, shouts “where are you?”

Phil shouts back “I’m here” just as the entirety of the National’s security team burst through the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Modern Rome-Campo Vaccino was actually bought as a honeymoon present (aw), then loaned to the National Gallery of Scotland. It’s never been in the National (most of Turner's work is actually in the Tate). 
> 
> \- It was put up for auction in 2010 where it sold for  £29.7 million (or $45 million) (no, seriously) to the Getty Centre in Los Angeles, where it now lives.
> 
> \- In a rare occurrence for this series, I have actually been to the National Gallery(!) - the layout is mostly done from my memory (and also the floorplan from the leaflet I got when I was there) and all of the rooms mentioned are real.
> 
> \- Their floorplan is also online [here](https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/floorplans/level-2) if you want to get a visual (and admire just how terrible my heist plans are!) - Phil goes up and left (in the orange) and Dan goes through the central hall and then left into purple. Yes, I actually plotted this out in pen _and_ asked people for advice ~*research!*~
> 
> \- And [here](http://www.jackson-pollock.org/images/paintings/reflection-of-the-big-dipper.jpg) is Jackson Pollock’s Reflection of the Big Dipper, just because it caused an almost fall through a skylight.


	8. 6. new york movie - edward hopper

Jack, wearing a badge with his real name on it, first saw Mark in the National Gallery of Ireland, or, really, he first _heard_ Mark in the National Gallery of Ireland; the loud bass of his voice, his accent, catching Jack in the middle of saying “the main themes of Edward Hopper’s paintings are solitude, regret, loneliness…..”. Mark had exploded into his ears and eyeline on _loneliness_ , and Jack had repeated it three times to try and get back on track. _Loneliness, loneliness, loneliness_. Mark said “oh, sorry to interrupt” (or had exclaimed _OH! SORRY TO INTERRUPT!_ ), suddenly only just realising that he’d stood right in front of the painting Jack was trying to talk about, group of tourists and guide all staring at him. Mark had winked at Jack as he’d left and Jack had thought no wait stay.

Mark hadn’t. He ambled off through the crowds like he had all the time in the world, swinging his arms at his sides, having only looked at one painting in the entire room. Jack had tried to pick the talk up again, “loneliness. Solitude. Uh, loneliness. Wait, I already said that, didn’t I?”

(it was like a Missed Connection, to go in the free copies of the Metro that they left at the gallery entrance. _Me: bored looking tour guide, You: loud, American, red hair. T-shirt that may as well have been painted on. I saw you at New York Movie, you looked at me. Fancy an actual movie sometime?_ )

(I saw you at New York Movie. You looked at me)

~*~

Across a bar, through a crowd of people, a city of people, a country, an entire world; they could find each other anywhere, meet each other anywhere. That’s the whole point. The expression on Dan’s face, reflected on Phil’s, _there you are_. Except, Phil supposes, for when he’s not there. They have some experience of that too.

The worst part really, is knowing that it’s his fault (and even in thinking it he can hear Dan, somewhere, instantly saying _no, it’s not_ ) - telling Melody Carter, I waited a long time for him to come back. I’m not letting him go again. I’ll be scared every day, that you’re not coming back. If you leave, I’m not coming back from that. Please come home. Saying _I can do it, let me come with you please_ when he couldn’t even count doors properly, _God_ Phil

It was stupid to think that he could have helped, that he could influenced anything in any way. That he could have kept Dan with him.

The fourth exit. It wasn’t even that hard.

~*~

Phil, underneath a painting of carnations and roses in a porcelain vase, leans his head back against the red wallpaper, watching as Jack withdraws his outstretched hand and says, “oh. Hi guys.”

One of the guards, a blond with a touch of Finn about him, a kind face that Phil instantly tries to appeal to, says “you said it was all clear.”

“It was. I just found him.” Jack’s voice is still odd and flat.

Everyone, all eleven of them, look down at Phil. He instinctively pulls his knees up to his chest.

“Nothing’s stolen” the other guard continues. “Can’t work out what was setting off all the alarms. Everything’s where it should be” he makes eye contact with Phil, seems to decide that Phil is harmless. “Did you just do a big lap of the place? Are you lost? Did someone leave you behind?”. He looks encouraging, like Phil is a child missing from a school trip, like they can do a tannoy message ( _can Dan Howell please come and collect his Phil from the front desk, he was lost but we’ve found him_ ).

The alarms, gradually, are switching themselves off. The only one left is an odd, sharp note - no rhythm, no routine, like one of Dan’s students pressing all the keys on the piano at once, over and over. It makes Phil flinch, every time.

One of the other guards, from the back of the group, says “what do you want us to do, Sean? I can radio the Met.”

Phil’s heart skips a beat and simultaneously falls to the floor, perfectly timed with another note burst. He looks at Jack, Jack does not, will not, look back at him. _Everyone_ is looking at Jack, in a way that he remembers, a way that they all used to look at Finn, when they were waiting for the next order. He notices a little star, just to the right of Sean, on Jack’s name badge. Jack’s face does something complicated, five emotions at once, none of which Phil can place.

“I’ll take him to my office,” Jack replies, finally. “It’s more likely that he got stuck in here, if nothing’s missing. We’ll try and work out where you came from, okay, buddy?”

He ruffles Phil’s hair. Phil jerks his hand up, to smack Jack’s away, but just about resists the urge. Jack takes the opportunity to wrap his fingers around Phil’s wrist, pull at him until he’s standing.

Jack says, “there we go, mate.”

Phil thinks _I’m not your mate_ but keeping quiet and innocent faced is apparently the best option, so he just smiles at Jack instead, lips pressed together.

Blond Guard, doubtfully, says “you’re sure? We still haven’t done the full run through. And who the hell keeps pressing _that_?” he points to the ceiling, as though to the odd piano alarm is an actual thing that they can all see.

“There’s nothing on him,” Jack says, smoothly. “We had a few uni trips today, someone always wanders off. He probably didn’t realise the time. Did you, mate?”

“Dunno, he’s not saying much,” one of the others pipes up.

Jack looks at him, finally, raises his eyebrows, _come on Phil, help me out here._

Phil, brain stuck on _call me mate one more time_ , says “that’s right. The trip. I took the wrong exit”, his voice comes out oddly, like he’s had to untangle it from his vocal chords. He addresses everything to Blond Guard, who gives him a kindly smile.

“The wrong exit? How did you manage that?” the guard who wanted to call the Met asks, but has already apparently lost interest in a situation that wasn’t as exciting as he first hoped.

Jack says, “you can carry on with the usual. Leave the Sunley Room though, I’ll do that later. I’ll take him with me.”

He tugs at Phil’s sleeve, pulls him into one step, then another.

Phil throws a look of appeal over his shoulder at the guards, who suddenly seem a better prospect, but watches as the door to the Flower Room closes, leaves him out in the corridor, alone with Jack.

“Well,” Jack says. “This is unexpected.”

~*~

( _Me: tour guide who only knows facts about one painting. The painting that you seem really interested in. Why? Why that one? You: not very subtle, earnest face, like you’re constantly on the verge of asking someone to prom. You’re too loud, there’s too much of you. Your every movement is too big, too obvious, to me. I see you, at New York Movie, and you may as well be narrating for yourself. An ongoing soliloquy while you check the frame, look at how it’s hung on the wall, where the security cameras are. I see you. You’re too much._ )

~*~

They walk up through the French paintings, huge dark portraits of disapproving cardinals (all of whom seem to be judging him); Jack still clasping Phil by the wrist, pulling him along while Phil walks deliberately slowly. If Jack’s annoyed he doesn’t show it, he strolls on like they’re two friends, out for a walk. He says, casually, “I’m guessing that the painting’s in the Sunley Room. Obviously”

Phil says nothing.

“You know, there’s a reason why it was last in my order. You’ve really ruined my big finale.”

Phil, finally, says, sharply “are you head of security here? Is that your real name?” he gestures, on _that_ , to Sean - neatly embossed in navy blue on Jack’s badge.

Jack blinks at him, surprised at Phil’s tone. “Yes. To both.”

The odd alarm, the out-of-tune piano key, sounds again. It makes Phil jump and miss a step. Jack holds his arm out to steady him.

“Oh” Jack says. “That’s the door alarm, from the Square. It buzzes every time someone tries to get in, you know.” He mimes pulling at a door handle.

There are three short buzzes, one long, then two more short.

“Wow” Jack looks quizzically at the ceiling. “Someone must really be trying to get back in here. I wonder who that could be.”

There’s a gasp; high pitched and somehow full of disappointment. Phil only realises that it came from him when Jack pauses, in front of a Staff Only door, and looks somewhat sympathetic.

“I’m not sending anyone down there after him. Not _now_ , anyway. There’s still stuff to do. We get enough people trying those doors, it’s not out of the ordinary. I mean, unless he stays there all night. Or tries to get in. Would he? For you?”

Phil thinks _yes. He would_. He says nothing.

Jack swipes a keycard through the door’s security slot and says “stupid question. Of course he would. What’s that like? Knowing that someone would do that for you?”

~*~

( _Me: finally getting together the confidence to speak to You. Aimed for flirty, charming, but didn’t quite reach it. Landed somewhere near awkwardly cute. I hope. You: didn’t seem disinterested. Hopefully not wishful thinking on my part. This gallery is grey, my life is grey, dull, the same things, the same paintings. How bored can you be that paintings start to look the same? But You. You: an explosion. I see you, reaching out, all the colours at once, like you’re saying I’m worth more. That there are possibilities._

 _Me: I can help, you know. You: not understanding. Saying too much, it’s not usually. Just me. I’m not, they don’t, I don’t usually get trusted with stuff. By myself. You: overspilling with feelings. Just that the feelings weren’t directed at me very much. Not the way that I wanted. Want._)

~*~

The door opens into a little office, a desk with an assortment of computer screens, shelves behind with files and photographs. Jack, with brown hair (but mostly wearing green), with a whole cast of people, different combinations in every frame. When he sees Phil looking Jack says “I have a big family” by way of explanation.

The plaque at the front of the desk says Sean McLoughlin. Head of Security.

Jack follows Phil’s eyeline again and says “that’s me. Picked Jack because it was the most generic name I could think of. Everyone knows at least two Jacks, right?” He pulls a chair from behind the desk, places it in the centre of the room. “Sit.”

Phil does, annoyed at himself instantly for doing so, following Jack’s direction again. He says “how did no one know? How did _no one_ notice you here?”

Jack perches himself on the end of the desk. “I specialise in not being noticed Phil. Keep up.”

. He instantly grimaces. “I mean, sorry. I just, I’m in the office mostly. Telling other people what to do. But, you avoided my question, about whether you were actually going to be on the job, so…..I made sure that I was there. I can’t believe Dan actually agreed to -”

“I have a mind of my own” Phil interrupts. Protective of both himself and Dan. “I wanted to."

Jack says _hmmmm_ thoughtfully, and swings his legs. Phil keeps staring at him, until, finally Jack says “this isn’t the end of a movie. I’m not going to do a big speech about my motives and my plans. You can make eyes at me all you want.”

“I _know_ your motive” Phil says, stops making eyes, whatever that means. “Mark’s your motive. Obviously. And, I don’t know, getting Felix to give everything up?”

“That achieves nothing” Jack replies. “He’s made all his money, you know that. You’re smarter than this, Phil, come on.”

“But the lists are done. There’s only a handful left.”

“Dan told you that?” Phil wants to stand up, to shout _stop talking about him you don’t get to talk about him_ , is so so frustrated with himself, that he’s let himself be walked into this room, sat on a little chair while Jack looms over him. That he took the wrong exit in the first place. “That’s kind of correct. There _is_ a handful left. It’s just that they’re all yours. And you’re the only one who messed up the order.”

Phil stares at him. Jack taps the side of his forehead, in a _think!_ gesture, then leans over expectantly, hands cupping his chin. “You picked the orders? For everyone?”

“I’m the best” Jack says. Not proudly by any means, his tone is almost disgusted with himself. “Everyone listens to me. Well, not Dan necessarily, but there were ways around that, weren’t there?”

The mention of Dan, timed perfectly with one long blast on the door alarm, hits a spark in Phil and makes the next words out of his mouth “what about Mark? What does all of this do for Mark? Why would he ever want -”

Jack, in one swift movement, is off the desk and kneeling beside Phil, like they’re figures in a Victorian painting and Jack is halfway through proposing, tangled in the folds of Phil’s skirt. He almost grasps at Phil’s hands but Phil holds them out of reach. “You really think that you’ve worked that out, don’t you?”

Phil, fingers curling into fists held to his cheeks, says “yes” honestly. “Yes, I do. You’ve said enough. Without meaning to.”

Jack, looking up into Phil’s face, “I don’t say anything without meaning to. Is he still with the girl in LA? Has he mentioned her?”

Phil is so confused by the change of subject that he drops his hands. “What? Who?”

“ _Mark_ ” Jack’s eyes flicker across Phil’s face, trying to find an answer to the question. When there is none he sighs.

Phil, as gently as he can muster at this particular moment, says “a never-ending list of stuff for Mark.”

Jack says “ha” at having his own words repeated back to him and rocks back on his heels.

~*~

( _Me: maybe played my cards too soon. But I wanted to impress you so much. You didn’t seem disinterested. I know you didn’t. You: cautious of me now but, still, still, you glance over at me, I see you. I can help. There’s no way you’re going to be able to do this, look at you, you’re the most noticeable person. We can prove them wrong, whoever they are, these people that don’t normally trust you with stuff. We can do it. Take me with you. Just. Take me with you._ )

( _You: kneeling in front of New York Movie, completely suspiciously, and yet no one was looking except Me: incredulous, you’re going to get caught if you carry on like this. You: even your frown is sunny and sweet; a labrador puppy furrowing its forehead. Who _are_ you?_ )

( _Me: telling you I’m working here, extra emphasis on working. You: wanting to know who for, isn’t that kinda lonely sometimes? Me telling You: you’re going to get caught, Your: million dollar mega watt smile, lights up your face and the faces of everyone around you, just from seeing it. I’ve: caught You. You: said we’re the same, we know all the tricks. Me: heard nothing beyond we’re the same._ )

~*~

“Think, Phil. From my perspective. You’re working in a gallery, you don’t even really like art that much but somehow that’s where you’ve ended up. Maybe it’s just a stop gap because you want to go back to uni, study video game design, maybe that’s what you’re into, not _art_. It’s so _static_ , so _silent_. But then, maybe you’re a bit static and silent too. And there’s one painting that you like, you learn facts about it but no one on the tours even wants to know, you can’t work out why everyone walks past it, you want it hanging in your living room, you want to take it home. And then one day, there’s someone else, standing, looking at this painting, looking at it the same way that you do, and you think who IS that, and it’s like you _have_ to speak to them, you have to _know_ them, you have -”

“I wouldn’t have to think very hard” Phil interrupts. “I mean, to imagine that. You _know_ that.”

“Of course I do. That’s the point. That’s precisely why you’re here, why I found you in the first place. To throw Dan off his game. Is that flattering? To know that you’re enough to affect someone that much? He’s _so good_ at it, this job, however much you try to spin it, and one mention of you and he’s -”

“Didn’t you just ask me this?”

“But what’s it _like_? To know that? He’s outside, he’s been trying to get into a locked and alarmed door for the past forty minutes. He’d probably climb up the building if he could, to get to you. What does that _feel_ like?”

The honest answer is safe, appreciated, needed, _loved_ , loved for every good and bad quality you possess, but Phil can’t say that to Jack. Not with Jack kneeling next to him, envy all over his face. It would be too cruel, even if Jack himself isn’t exactly being uncruel at the moment. Phil is not that type of person. He feels his eyebrows raise, his shoulders too, he gives Jack a helpless little shrug.

Jack says “he said once, that, maybe, if things were different.”

Phil can relate to Mark, a little. In terms of avoiding confrontation. He knows, right down to his heart, that Mark only said that, the _maybe if things were different_ to be kind, to let Jack down gently because things  couldn’t be different. Phil knows that better than anyone. Mark probably thought he was setting an impossible task, a mountain that Jack would never be able to climb. He says “so, when you said me and Dan were famous to you all, you really just meant _you_. Specifically.”

“Yup.” Jack looks impressed, almost. “You really remember everything that I said to you.”

“Well, obviously. It was important.”

“I also elaborated a little when I said that we were similar.”

“I know that.” Phil sounds harsher than he meant. “We’re not similar at all.”

“No.” Jack’s voice is back to its younger, smaller tone. Phil wonders again if this is his actual voice. Is Sean’s voice. “We could have been though. If the situations had been the same.”

“I don’t think -”

“I wish we were similar though. In lots of ways.”

“I know,” Phil says, flatly. “I know.”

“It was maybe the wrong phrasing to use. You’re not really famous to me, it’s more that I’m really, horribly, jealous of you.”

Phil repeats “I know” and remembers every look of astonishment that has ever crossed Jack’s face around Phil, the expressions of complete bafflement at his clumsiness, his naivety, which now all seem to say _why you? Why you and not me?_

“I’m going to let you go, Phil. I mean that. I can make up a story for the guys, easy. You don’t have to be a part of this anymore. It’s not about you, it never was.”

Phil says “I can’t just _not_ be a part of it” and really means _part of him_ , are you really expecting me to walk away from _him_?

Jack says “ _why_ Phil? Is he worth this? All of this? I mean, I’ve _met_ Dan, multiple times. Is he really that special?”

“Yes” Phil replies instantly. He’s worth everything.

“Is he worth all of this?”

“I still don’t fully understand what _all of this_ means.”

Jack sighs and says “I want them caught, Phil. I want the whole thing over. They can’t keep doing this, they don’t realise the aftermath, do they? _We_ realise, don’t we, you and me?”

Despite it being what he expected it still hits Phil all at once, catches him mid-breath. He says, instantly, “but how?” and “but you can’t” and “but I won’t let you”

~*~

(They had a party, a huge champagne and black tie affair for the gallery’s main donors and their families. A ridiculous, over-the-top thing that everyone tried to get out of working because the guests just got utterly trashed and tried to take paintings off the walls for selfies and no one was allowed to question them because they were responsible for about 95% of the upkeep.

Jack had worked it last year, and spent most of the night having to rescue artwork from wine stained hands and spiriting them away to the closed off rooms. His boss never kept track of where the paintings ended up, just that they would be somewhere safe and would reappear, magically, the next morning, exactly where they’d come from.

New York Movie wasn’t in harm's way, really. It also wasn’t the type of painting that got took off the walls for photos (that was normally all portraits of goddesses with one boob hanging out), but, by some bizarre luck and terrible aesthetic choices on the owner’s behalf, it hung right next to The Gates of Dawn (full on topless) - a painting that usually got instantaneously taken under the arm of some drunk businessman and appeared in a million Facebook posts the next morning. It was easy, in the crowds, with the music, the drinks, to take both paintings down. To take them both away)

( _Me: look what I’ve done, look what I’ve got for you. Look how easy that was. I moved the gates to bring you a theatre. You: in a dinner jacket, because of course we had the same plan, see how well we work together? Take me with you. Just. Take me with you._ )

( _Me: holding out a painting, like I was holding out my heart, my soul, everything that I am, _take me with you, let me come with you_ , I got this for you. You: asked me who I am, how can you not know who I am, by now, and I: gave you a fake name. I can say this because you’re not even reading these. You: looked at my real name on my badge and accepted the lie. You: took Me with You_)

~*~

Jack looks at him. It’s not a kind look, or the vaguely condescending one that Jack usually has around Phil. He looks irritated, exasperated, like Phil has used up every last drop of his patience. He says “seriously?”

Phil says “of course.”

”I could call the police,” Jack says. “There’s a button. On my desk. I could _literally_ take two steps over there and call the police. Right now.”

”You’re not going to though.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m not. Why would I set a trap for a pack of foxes and then just catch the first fucking trusting _naive_ rabbit that wanders into it?” he gestures to Phil on the word naive, waves his hand all over Phil’s face.

Phil finally realises, _a trap_ , why Modern Rome was last on the list. “You wanted them all here. At the National.” Jack inclines his head, not quite a nod, but almost. “I’m not going to let you -”

”How are you going to do that, Phil? The first three jobs, I planned, I set up for you. The Boreas, whatever, the guy in the gallery had a massive crush on you, pure luck. Except that probably happens to you a lot, you being oblivious to people having crushes on you. If you weren’t the way that you were then Melody Carter would have been terrified, Madame Darbonne would have called the police. Instead they tell me how cute you are, how _sweet_. Well, Madame Darbonne that is. Melody Carter hates me, obviously. We actually could have worked well together, you and me. As a team.”

Phil says nothing. All the odd pride he had felt for those jobs seems to float away, a breeze that makes him shudder. There was nothing to be proud of, really, after all. He’s surprised and doesn’t quite know why. _Everyone’s been waiting for me, it feels like_ because they were. They all were.

“But the first job, the actual first time that you actually had to do something by yourself, you failed. You got caught. You went through the wrong door. How were you ever going to help him by yourself? You never questioned anything - I put every single painting right underneath your flat, and you were just like hey thanks” Jack throws a sarcastic thumbs up. “You couldn’t follow basic instructions because you wanted so much to be _nice_ and _good_ and have lovely intentions. But these people aren’t good Phil, they don’t have lovely intentions. How could you ever do this on your own?”

“I would,” Phil says. “I would for him.”

“You took the wrong exit,” Jack says. “However much you want. It’s not you.”

Phil says “it’s not. But it’s not them either, not the ones I’ve met. And it’s not Dan, it’s not -”

“Well, it’s me, Phil. And I told you that, in Paris, to your _face_ , that I didn’t have honorable intentions. I _told_ you that I wasn’t a good person. And you still, still, listened to me and did what I said. You still walked into a room that I gave you the key to.”

“I get that you’ve been hurt, I get that something happened, I know that you want -”

“Exactly. You know what I want. If this had gone to plan, if you’d just followed the order, I’d be pressing that button for them all, everyone gathered here for Modern Rome because it’s the last one, the most expensive.” Jack sighs. “But, I mean, that’s fine, I have other plans, just in case.”

“You can’t do -”

“How could you stop me?” Jack says, completely wide eyed, free of malice. “How could _you_ stop me? How could you help Dan? On your own? You can’t, you never could”. He leans forward and grabs Phil’s wrists, pulls him closer. “Go to the Isle of Man, to your parents’ house. What did you say, you go there to clear your head? Date the guy at the gallery, whatever, forget this whole thing.” He stands, dragging Phil up with him.

“You’re just going to let me leave?” Phil shakes his hands free. “I’m going to tell them, I’ll -”

“Tell them what? Everything’s in place. I just need to change a few things, but whatever. It’s too late. You can’t help them and you can’t help _him_ , you couldn’t have done, anyway.”

“I’ll tell them that you work here.”

Jack looks amused. “Wow, Phil. What happens then? If a group of international art thieves came to my place of work? With my _direct line_ to the Met Police? With _what I know_. What would happen exactly?”

Phil, in desperation, says “what about Mark?”

Jack says “ _Mark_?”

“Tell me about it. Tell me what happened” Phil has no idea where it comes from, why he says it, but Jack flinches like Phil has sent an arrow into the only soft part of his heart. He takes advantage. “Have you ever told anyone about it?”

Jack blinks at him. “No. Who would have listened?”

“Me. I will.” 

Jack says, so fast that Phil misses most of the words “I used to leave him messages. You know, the Missed Connections, in the Metro and stuff. He always reads the Metro on jobs, to look casual, and I’d see him read them and be like that’s you, I wrote that about you. Never noticed. He never wanted to notice.”

Phil says “missed connections?”

“Literally” Jack replies. “Completely. Missed every single connection there could have been.”

~*~

( _Me: in Paris with You: the woman this whole job is about keeps trying to give me advice. Advice about You. You: distracted and worried about Me. You think it was a bad idea, taking me along, but then I lied. It’s a lie I’m pulling off, I’m good at this. Surprisingly good at this. What a hidden talent to discover. The only interesting things about Me seem to appear when I’m around You._ )

 _(Me: getting told how good I am at this, how well we’re doing. Signing the guestbook. My real name. You: know my real name, you saw it. Unless you never noticed. Unless you never cared enough to notice. We: only talk about the jobs, don’t we? You: like the praise I guess. They: trust you with everything now. Don’t they? You: say thank you but it’s not the thanks that I want._ )

( _Me: a stray that you’ve adopted. Bringing you gifts so that you’ll let me stay with you. Because that’s what happening, isn’t it? What happens when the jobs run out, what happens when I can no longer bring you things? You: try to get me to talk to people, to get involved. You: I only wanted. You: to see Me._ )

~*~

Phil says “you never told him face to face? I mean, Missed Connections are for, you know, people who keep _missing_ each other.”

“I never needed to tell him Phil, it was obvious. It was so _obvious_. Everyone could see it.” Jack sighs. “I mean, I told him once, but even then, I didn’t _tell_ him as such, it was more -” he blinks, as if only now realising where they are, what he’s saying. “Why am I telling you this?”

“I thought that -”

“Well played Philip.” Jack gives a tiny, sarcastic round of applause. “Almost had me.”

“Tell me” Phil pleads. “Tell me more about the Missed Connections, I can -”

“Nope. I’ve kept you long enough, I think.”

Phil says “long enough for what?” and realises that the alarm, the piano alarm, has stopped. No one is trying the door anymore. Unless he stays there all night, or tries to get in. Tries to get in. “ _For what?_ ”

~*~

(He’d tried to kiss Mark, first and only time, on the rooftop of a building next to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, a job that hadn’t gone well; he’d been too distracted, too jumpy, Mark trying to be reassuring but just being accidentally patronising. It was freezing, Mark’s hair clouding around his face. Jack had cupped his jaw, leant in slow enough to be pushed away, and kissed him. Mark had stayed completely still, like something Jack had caught, a butterfly on a pin, in a frame, and when Jack had leant back he said “oh. Jack. Oh” as three separate statements. Each _oh_ full of sadness and something like fear, as though he was already terrified of the awkward conversation they were about to have.

Jack said “oh” back, lightly, because it was obvious. Hadn’t it always been obvious? The word broke a little, on his tongue. He felt like his heart, cupped in his hands, held out to Mark, didn’t so much shatter as sadly deflate.)

( _Me: misjudged the whole thing, didn’t I. You: awkward and on edge, like you blame yourself. You: shouldn’t do that. It’s on Me: signed up for a job that you don’t want to do, that no one wants to do, it’s too much. Me: don’t have that much to lose really. Do I._ )

~*~

Jack still has a casual hand to Phil’s elbow, like there’s absolutely no possible way that Phil would ever even attempt to try and run away, walking him down the corridor. Phil looks down at Jack’s index finger, lightly looped in the fabric of his borrowed hoodie, and thinks _wow, you really don’t think much of me do you_ in one breath, and snatches himself from Jack’s grip in another. Jack laughs, amused, like Phil has done something completely endearing, and reaches out again.

(as they’d left the room, or as Phil had been dragged from the room, he’d said “am I bait? All of that talking?” while Jack said “the talking was all true Phil. All of that was true” without answering the rest of the question. _What’s that like, to know someone would do that for you?_ Dan would never have left, would never have just given up trying the doors. Dan would try to get in. Dan _would_ get in)

Phil thinks, wildly, looking at Jack, holding onto him with just a finger tangled in fabric, that he’s about to be tricked into saying something, or doing something, to make Dan appear. That Jack, again, is going to play the situation. _How could you help him?_

“Okay” Jack says. “I imagine that he would come back through the Sainsbury Wing, eventually. It’s easiest.”

Phil thinks I could help him. I always help him.

They’d taught basic self defense skills, as part of the security guard induction. All sorts of maneuvers that the instructor said were very easy, even if Phil wanted to disagree on that front, everyone perfecting choke holds and the perfect restraining position while Phil fell over his own feet and succeeded only in restraining himself, which apparently wasn’t even supposed to be possible . In the end the guy had, despairingly, said _look Philip, all you really need to do is just kick them in the back of the legs, okay? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to be dealing with many art thieves anyway so -_

He has to angle himself weirdly to do it but just about manages to get a solid hit to the back of Jack’s left leg. It probably would only have caused a trip, if the person was expecting it, but Jack, startled, falls instantly, arms flailing - Phil doesn’t see how he lands because he’s already running in the other direction, hears Jack shout “ _Phil!_ ” loud enough for the gallery to hear.

When he reaches the staircase he runs down, instead of up, he’s fairly sure that Jack would assume that he was running, on the same floor, sticking to the original plan because Jack, obviously, doesn’t think that Phil is capable of coming up with plans of his own. It’s an area of the gallery that they didn’t look at on the map, all the cloakrooms and restrooms. Identical doors that he runs straight past, exits that he doesn’t even attempt, not after recent experience.

Jack shouts “Phil!” again but from above, obviously stayed on the second floor, thinking that Phil had run back to the Sainsbury Wing. Phil gives himself a mental fist bump at that, at working that out correctly.

Finally, he stops, out of breath, with no more stairs to go down in what is, presumably, the National’s basement (of _course_ he would end up in a basement).

It’s not like the Manchester basement, or even the one at the Tate (the few times he had gone in there). For one, there’s nothing art related but the National probably has enough storage elsewhere. There’s lots of displays, forgotten stands on leaflets for exhibitions that are over, lots of doors leading to cupboards, and windows, letting in silvery light that makes the whole room glow grey. Phil tries to establish exactly where he is, in relation to the outside, not under the building, not from the windows, possibly to the right, near the theatres. Street level, hopefully. There’s a cold wind, coming from somewhere he can’t place.

He steps further.. Above him he can hear shouting but it sounds far away, like the voices are moving up. Hopefully moving up.

There’s a sigh, a noise he doesn’t even realise that he made, as he brushes past one of the stands, scattering leaflets, then another one, another sigh, which he _knows_ that he didn’t make.

Then, there, moonlight catching the fluttering ends of his hair, the shadows under his eyes, outlined in silver, is Dan.

And then there is nothing, no voices, no leaflets, Phil isn’t even aware of outstretching his arm but he does, automatically, towards Dan, like they’re wrapped in a spiders web. He says “ _Dan_ ” and “what are you doing _here_?”

“What am I _doing_ here?” Dan says, every word apparently a struggle. “I came back. Obviously. What are -” he shakes his head, either at himself or Phil. “We don’t have time, we can -” he is suddenly very close, just catching the edges of Phil’s fingertips. “One of the cupboards has a window. I got through it. Mark’s outside, we need -” he stops again. “ _Phil_. You weren’t there. Why weren’t you there? I thought -”

Dan’s hands are fluttering from his sides, towards Phil, and then back. Phil’s arm is still outstretched, just about touching Dan’s chest. A half step further means he would be pressed against Dan, that he could press his forehead to Dan’s shoulder and -

“There’s no time.” Dan says, reading Phil’s mind. “We have to go. This way.”

The cupboard is full of small replicas of a sculpture that Phil recognises, Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the Underworld (he almost laughs, almost says _hey don’t look back at me_ ). The window is smashed, the source of the cold breeze, Phil looks at Dan’s hands and notices grazes on the knuckles, swipes of blood. “Did you _punch_ the window?”

“You _weren’t there_.” Dan pulls his sleeves around his fists. “I tried everything. The doors wouldn’t open. The locks were impossible to get through. Louise couldn’t do anything. Of course I punched the fucking window.”

Phil says “oh” and reaches out, again.

Dan instinctively steps forward, remembers himself, “there’s no time.”

“We can -”

“I can’t. I won’t be able to let go. There’s no time.”

The window is just about big enough for Phil to push himself through. Dan holds his hands out and says “you first” no room for argument, kneels slightly so that Phil can boost himself up, through the window, scratching his sides on the exposed glass and then land, an inelegant sprawl of limbs, into Mark’s waiting arms.

“Phil!” Mark says, joyfully. “You gave us a fucking heart attack. I haven’t breathed for the past hour.”

Phil says “hour?”

Mark pats his head affectionately and, with one arm, swings Phil back onto his feet and to one side, and doesn’t even need to catch Dan, who lands on his feet. But then, Phil thinks, he’s probably done this before. Climbing out of windows. In the outside light Phil can see how pale he is, flushed tracks of something on his cheeks, eyes red tinged. Phil says “Dan” again and Dan says “there’s no time, we have to -”

“The square?” Mark says to Dan.

Dan nods and then they set off round the side of the building, past the theatres, and then back to Trafalgar Square. Everything seems too bright, the gallery itself is, suddenly, bathed in floodlights (“oh fuck” Mark says, eloquently), and the Tate used to do that, Phil remembers, if there was a major incident, switched all of its lights on. The whole building seems to be vibrating with a high pitched alarm, everyone around the fountains staring up at it, confused.

“Sweatshirts off,” Dan hisses, pulling his over his head and throwing it to Mark. When Phil does the same, Dan grabs his hand (finally. Phil laces their fingers, would tie a double knot if he could, unbreakable) and pulls him down the steps, towards Nelson’s Column. “Mark, we’ll meet you in ten minutes, okay? Agreed place.”

Mark disappears instantly into the crowd and Phil says “but -” as Dan continues propelling them forward. The gallery main doors open and six of the guards spill out. “Where -”

Dan spins them a little, pushes Phil, not exactly gently, against cold concrete, the base of one of the lions. He takes two paces backwards, and looks back up at the gallery, lights catching his face, his borrowed shirt. Phil thinks _I love you in red_ and then just _I love you_. The guards are now walking down the steps, surveying the square occupants, all of whom seem to have gotten over the novelty of the National Gallery being lit up and are back to taking photos. Phil recognises Blond Guard, Guard who wanted to call the Met, and says “ _Dan_ ”

Dan takes small steps towards Phil, stuttering and stumbling, like Phil is a mirage that will disappear in a wisp of smoke if he gets too close too quickly, like it’s a trick.

Phil reaches out, grabs the cuffs of his shirt, and pulls him in, finally gets to press his head into the curve of Dan’s shoulder, Dan curls around him, turns his face into Phil’s hair, brings his hand to Phil’s jaw, splays his fingers so they’re covering the side of Phil’s face that the light could hit. It’s a pretty decent tactic, Phil can see how the guards will look straight past them, two random guys in bright shirts, hugging underneath a stone lion.

“You weren’t there,” Dan says, whispers. “I thought. I don’t know what I thought. That you’d been caught, that you’d gone somewhere I couldn’t get to you.”

“You came back for me.”

“Of course I did. Are you serious. If anything had happened to you, if _anything_ happens -”

Phil, through his fringe, watches two of the guards walk past, granting them only the briefest of looks. He says “I took the wrong exit.”

Dan stops, fingers frozen in Phil’s hair. He doesn’t say anything because, Phil assumes, he doesn’t want to be too harsh.

“I’m sorry,” Phil adds, miserably. “I’m terrible at this.”

“What are you apologising for?” Dan says, finally. “I don’t _want_ you to be good at this.”

 _But I do_ Phil thinks. _For you_. Instead he says, “I have to tell you what happened.”

“In the hour you were gone?” Dan says. “The _hour_. I thought you’d been caught, I thought you’d been arrested, I thought you were hurt, I thought you were _lost_. It would have been my fault, for bringing you on this _stupid_ job. If I hadn’t found you -”

“What?”

“I would have stolen every single painting in that entire gallery” Dan replies. “Tonight. Everything. I would have gone right up to the roof. I would have left it empty and -”

“I did get caught,” Phil interrupts. “I did.”

Dan flinches like he wants to lean back, wants to see Phil’s face, but can’t, not with everyone in the square. “What? How? It felt like ten of them were just after me”

Phil says “it’s Jack. He’s head of security there. He found me, then I shouted so the guards would come to me, and he acted like I was someone lost, from a trip, but then I think he knew that you would have come back for me, and -”

Dan, voice sharp as ice, says “go back to the shouting so the guards would come to you please.”

Phil detaches himself slightly, so he can make eye contact with Dan, who looks like he might cry. Or punch another window. Every window in the National, possibly. “You don’t care about the rest?”

“I _care_ about _you_ ,” Dan says.

The ice in Dan’s voice is shattered when Mark, loud enough to be heard from twenty feet away, even when he’s actively trying to be stealthy, appears behind them. “Guards have looped around the left side. We should move now.”

Dan pulls to the side, keeps his arm slung around Phil’s shoulder, says “okay. Phil’s got some stuff to tell us.”

~*~

They go to the arranged meeting place (the booth of an extremely loud and busy Mexican restaurant) where Louise, apparently, has been _freaking the fuck out where were you_ while drinking through an entire menu’s worth of margaritas. 

Phil tries to relay the whole conversation, from the muddled recesses of his mind, except now it’s to a mariachi band soundtrack, with Mark, Louise and Dan all staring at him, turning paler.

“I know a couple of things” Phil says, eventually. “I know that he’s been running everyone’s orders, and I _know_ that he wanted Modern Rome last as a big reveal, in the National. He wanted to get you all there.”

Louise says “by all of us, you mean -”

“I don’t know. He just kept saying them all, all of you.”

“Me?” Mark supplies.

“I don’t know” Phil suddenly remembers. “He left you messages, he said. In the Missed Connections of the Metro. I don’t know what exactly.”

Mark repeats “Missed Connections?”

“Like, things he wanted to say. I guess. To you.”

“But he needs another plan now,” Louise says, saving Mark from replying. “You returned the painting.”

“They don’t know that," Dan says, having spent most of the conversation staring at Phil, flushed across his cheeks. “It’s in a closed off room. Jack would know that’s where we’d put it. He could get it himself.”

“But, how many do you have left?”

“Four” Dan starts to say. “New York Movie, Lavender -”

Phil says, suddenly, “Dan, we need to move the paintings.”

They’re in the flat below for a reason. How did he, or Dan, not realise that Jack had set them comfortably on a ticking bomb? While the paintings remain there Jack still holds all the cards. Not all, but some. But where could they go? Phil runs through options: not into their flat, too obvious. Not to Martyn, he absolutely cannot be involved. Dan’s work? Too suspicious.

Dan, obviously doing the same thing, says “but to where?” and then smacks his own forehead, hard enough to make Louise jump. “I’m so stupid. _So_ stupid. Why didn’t I question that? They’re underneath our _flat_.”

“Why did none of us question it?” Louise says, gently. “He was contacting all of us, with the order he would recommend or whatever. I just thought that he was so good, and he’d probably finished his list, and -”

“But what about _me_ ” Mark interrupts. “What about me? If anyone was stupid here, if anyone just _thought_ stuff here, then it’s me. You said he was a _tour guide._ ”

“You didn’t know that?”

“No” Mark says. “He said he was there on a job too, and I thought. I thought -”

Dan starts to say something but Louise cuts over him to say “let’s not get caught up in who was or wasn’t stupid, okay? The fact is that he’s got some kind of plan for us. And I don’t want to get arrested.”

Phil says “Dan. The paintings. We have to move them.”

~*~

Dan makes Phil go into their flat first, after a silent taxi ride, where he had curled his grazed hands around Phil’s and just….held on. “He could be downstairs. _Someone_ could be there” and there had been a small, murmured argument which had ended with Dan saying “you shouted so guards would come to you” and Phil, admitting defeat, going into their living room and wanting to pretend that none of this was happening.

There’s an envelope on their mantelpiece, under Almond Blossoms, still propped up there. The envelope has Dan’s handwriting, not his usual illegible scrawl, actual gaps between the letters like he really wanted it to be readable. It says _Phil_. There are four pages inside, covered with the same careful words.

It starts: _Phil. If you’re reading this then things must have gone wrong. I’m hoping that you’re with Louise, she promised she would bring you here. She has a code, and my passwords, to be able to transfer all the_

Phil stops reading. To continue, he thinks, would be to admit that things have gone wrong (even if they have. Horribly, and completely obviously). He folds the letter back up and catches sight of the end of the fourth page: _I wanted to be a good person. You made me want to be one. You saved me from something I thought I couldn’t be saved from, and even if I say I rescued myself that’s not entirely 100% accurate. If anyone rescued me then it was you. If anyone could have rescued me, if anyone could have pulled me into normality, then it would have been you._

Dan, re-entering the room, says “oh. Don’t read that. That was for, if I didn’t -”

Phil looks at him, this boy that he loves so much and says, “if I rescued you once then I can do it again.”

Dan blanches, a little, “that’s not fair. I wrote that for you to read if I wasn’t here. You don’t get to bring it up now.”

“I mean it.”

Dan looks him right in the eyes and says “you rescue me every day. Every single day.”

Phil says “I can’t. We can’t talk about this now. I won’t want to leave and we have to - with the paintings - we have -”

They go to the flat downstairs, Almond Blossoms under Dan’s arm, and survey the remaining paintings. Lavender Mist. Lady Agnew. And, finally, New York Movie.

A woman stood in a corridor, alone, while (to her left) a whole crowd of people are watching a film. There’s a pillar, clearly dividing her from them. Phil wonders if this is why it appealed to Jack, so much. The woman doesn’t look lonely, not really. Not to him.

“There it is,” he says to Dan. “The start of everything.”

Dan touches the frame. “I feel like we should get rid of this next. If it’s that important, if it _means_ something, maybe it’s part of his Plan B. Maybe. Who knows what he’s thinking, really”

“I just think he’s hurt,” Phil says, softly. “He’s lashing out. He thinks that it could have been different if it was just the two of them.”

“Don’t we all,” Dan replies, his tone the complete opposite, sharp and cold. “He played us all, every single one of us. We all couldn’t see it.”

“I think,” Phil says. “That he probably played me, the most”

“That’s not fair. You had no idea what you were getting into. He took advantage of how much you would want to help me”

“And he actually underestimated that,” Phil replies, somewhat proudly.

Dan tries to avoid looking proud but sort of fails, there’s a glitter in his eye that Phil notices. He says “well, obviously” and reaches over, touches his hand, feather light, to Phil’s face.

They’d had a few Edward Hoppers at the Tate, he remembers. All very similar, women sitting alone, mostly, or people alone. The types of paintings that people would stand and stare at for a while, sighing. Phil sighs at it now.

The paintings, plus Almond Blossoms, fit into two suitcases (the Jackson Pollock taking up a case of its own). Dan says “I’ll take one” and they stand awkwardly in the hall, no clue of where to go next.

A woman on her own. Waiting.

“You know, Edward Hopper put his wife in all his paintings, that’s why the women look the same. They’re all her. That’s weird right? Painting your wife as lonely” Dan says softly, setting the suitcases on their sides.

“Maybe he painted her waiting for him. Because he knew that he’d always come back,” Phil says. And then “I don’t know. I don’t get art, you know that.”

A woman on her own. Waiting

He says to Dan. “I know where we can take them” and doesn’t know why the thought didn’t occur to him before.

~*~

There are no Pomeranians in the garden. Melody Carter, on her porch with a cup of tea in hand, stands very still, like she’s posing for a photograph in the twilight. Watches him approach.

_She hates me. For obvious reasons._

Phil says “hello”

She smiles at him. A tiny quirk of her lips but a smile, it’s there, he sees it. “Hello Phil” - she looks at Dan, following a few steps behind, like Phil had told him to, not to scare her. Dan gives his kindest, most dimple filled smile.

He drops the suitcase and says “We need your help. If that’s okay.”

“This is him?” she says. “Your boy?”

“Yes. This is my Dan.”

Dan says “hello” in the same voice he uses for puppies and small children.

“You need _my_ help? Both of you?”

“Yes. Nothing major, nothing that’s going to get you into trouble, but just - your help. Please. You can say no.” (Dan had said, in the taxi, _don’t say you can say no, I know you’re going to, we need this, we don’t have anyone else_ and he huffs a sort of fondish laugh now, from behind Phil.)

Melody finishes her tea, sets the cup down and says “how exciting. Come in then.”

They walk into the house, where all seven of the Pomeranians are waiting in the hall. Dan, startled, gives a sound that Phil can only describe as a squeak of utter joy at the sheer number, before he kneels on the ground trying to gather them all into his arms.

Six of them anyway. The seventh immediately starts trying to climb Phil’s jeans. He says “hi Claude” and picks him up, buries his face into his fur. Tries to pretend that they really have just come here for tea and to play with dogs.

Melody watches them both, amused, Dan now flat on his back while the dogs clamber over him. “So what exactly is it that I can help you with?”

Phil says “it’s a long story.”

“Should I make tea first?”

Phil, feeling the need to prepare her, somehow, says “it’s about Jack. Just so you know.”

“I thought it would be” she says. “Vodka instead then?”

~*~

( _Me. Me. Me: heart isn’t breaking but slowly cracking, splintering. Like the top of an iced over lake. Just wait for it to cave in completely. Would You notice. I: am doing the same to someone else. The heartbreaking that is. It’s like looking in a mirror sometimes. You: wonder if this job is a little cruel. Actually, no wondering involved. You tell me it’s cruel. And it is. That’s because of Me_ )

~*~

“So, we need to store them here. Just for a while. He doesn’t know that they’re here, he still thinks they’re in the flat.”

“He won’t assume that you’ve moved them?”

“No. He doesn’t seem to think very much of my, uh, capabilities. He thinks I’m a bit naive and useless.”

“Oh” says Melody. “I think he thought that about me too. A little bit. Or a lot, actually.”

“So, is it okay? For us to leave them here?”

Melody says “he treated me very badly, you know. I don’t think it was genuine. Not anymore. I think you were very kind to me, when I showed you the photos, with what you said. Because you could have been harsher, more impatient. Lots of people were.”

“I don’t think that’s very fair.”

“We understand each other though, don’t we?”

Phil says “hmmm” and glances over at Dan, who has frozen in place looking up at him, distracted even from the dogs.

“I can put them in the gallery, it’s secure,” she points to Almond Blossoms. “I love this one. We went to see it in the Van Gogh museum. Isn’t it beautiful? I didn’t even know it had been stolen.” When Phil doesn’t say anything (he can’t, not against the lump in his throat) she moves onto Lavender Mist. “I’m not a fan of Pollock though.”

“It’s his favourite” Phil points to Dan, who is still staring at him and Melody. “Thank you for doing this, for us. I mean -”

“Thank you” Dan echoes. “If there’s anything we can -”

Melody neatly stacks the paintings against the wall. “I thought about you. After you’d left. About what you were planning to do, and what you said. Dealing with things so that he didn’t have to. I worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Don’t I? With what you just said?”

Dan, from the floor, says “you don’t. Nothing will happen to him. Not with me around.”

Melody blinks down at him, smiles and says “tea then?”

~*~

At the table in her second kitchen, around her laptop, Melody says “does it have to be the same place it came from?”

“I don’t know” Phil frowns at an article about the theft of New York Movie, during a party, all the board members interviewed but everyone too tipsy to remember if they’d had the painting at any point through the night. “I mean, there’s no rule, is there?”

He directs the question at Dan, who has a lapful of Pomeranians and a handful of shortbread. Dan, slowly, says “I guess not. It’s more ideal, to return them to the original place, but we can’t get to Ireland. He’ll assume that’s where we’re going, that’s what we’ve done so far, so much could go wrong.”

“There were Hoppers at the Tate” Phil says. “You remember?”

“I remember,” Dan replies. “The Pleasures of Sadness."

Melody says “oh!” like she’s surprised at herself. “Oh! I have an idea.”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I’m going to a party, at the Tate. Tomorrow evening. It’s a dinner but they want to talk to me about showing some of the paintings there” she smiles over at Dan. “Phil made me think about that, I would never have done it otherwise” Dan dimples at him, pride in his eyes. “I wasn’t going to go because I have no one to go with, and I didn’t want to go on my own, so -”

“I’ll go with you,” Phil says.

Dan says “um” and then “no, I don’t think so.”

“We could easily take the painting with us” Melody continues. “Couldn’t we?”

“ _I_ think so” Phil says. “I know the layout there better than anyone, everyone trusts me, they _like_ me, they used to ask me back all the time, remember?”

“I haven’t been to a party with someone for so long."

“I remember the security codes. All of them. I _know_ how to get around there.”

“No” Dan says. “I’ll go. No one there will know me, it’ll be all the board members and the higher ups” he points at Phil. “They’ll know _you_ , you saved their llama, remember? Everyone will want to come and speak to you. I can dump it in the gift shop stock room, they won’t find it for months probably. Not with how disorganised Tina is.”

“But -”

“No” Dan stands, gently displacing dogs and bows to Melody, raises a fake cap. “M’lady, may I escort you to your dinner?”

Melody giggles, delighted. “Of course.”

~*~

When they leave (Dan having been prised away from the dogs) Phil suddenly feels very tired, even though it’s only eleven, can’t even bring himself to walk to the tube station. He leans on Dan’s arm while Dan hails a taxi, keeps curled around him while Dan bundles them both inside.

Dan pulls him right the way to their flat, up the stairs, through the living room (where Mark bounds to his feet, Dan says _we’re going to our room, we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?_ ), and then deposits Phil, gently, on the edge of their bed, touches his cheek and says “if anything had happened. I mean, something _did_ happen, but Phil, if _anything_ had happened to you, I don’t -”

“Stop,” Phil says, weakly. He’s so tired.

“If we see Jack, actually, I’ll make _sure_ that we see him, I’ll -”

“No,” Phil stops, clears his throat. Dan blinks down at him. “No. I don’t want you to do that. That’s the whole point. That was always the whole point. To keep you with me.”

“I’m here,” Dan says. “I’m right here.”

Phil reaches up, fists the fabric of Dan’s shirt in his hands and pulls him in; presses his forehead to Dan’s chest. “I feel sorry for him. I don’t know why, but I do. He said he was jealous of me. Of us, I guess.”

“I could understand why,” Dan says, voice a gentle murmur. “But I don’t feel sorry for him.”

“I think, sometimes, about what I would have done if you’d said, come with me, in Manchester, with the Van Gogh. Or with the llama.”

“Come with me as in come with me and steal paintings?”

“Yeah,” Phil leans back, looks up. Dan frowns down at him, pets his hands through Phil’s hair.

“What would you have said?” Dan says, like the words are difficult.

“No,” Phil says, finally. “I would have said no. It would have hurt, it would have _killed_ me, but -”

“I would never have asked you. And if I _had_ then that’s what I would have wanted you to say. Because that’s why I love you.”

“Really, just that?”

“Amongst other things” Dan smiles, then is suddenly serious. “Phil, if anything had happened to you, you have to understand - I need you to _stay_.”

“Always,” Phil supplies, and lets Dan clamber into his lap, folding them both onto the bed, into the comforting smell of his duvet, as tangled together as an ampersand. Phil mumbles “don’t go anywhere” as he’s falling asleep, fully clothed, just catches Dan saying “never”.

Phil dreams of making a fortress out of Almond Blossoms, a whole castle of turrets that he and Dan could live in together, right on the coast of the Isle of Man, looking back over at Liverpool, Manchester, London, thinking _we left you all behind, I kept him safe_.

He dreams of running through the National on a loop, missing the fourth exit. Over and over. And over. When the door alarm sounds it’s Jack’s voice, saying _how could you help him how could you keep him with you._

_Falling over in the Flower Room. Over and over._

He sleeps for hours, wakes at four the next afternoon to Mark and a platter of food. Mark, again, says “I cook when I’m stressed. I’ll bake you something. Anything you want” and the kindness on his face just makes Phil think _maybe it would be different. If it was just the two of us_. 

Mark makes him a red velvet cake, with green food colouring that turns it a muddy brown. While Phil eats it Mark says, gently, “I’m sorry, Phil.”

Phil says “why? Why are you sorry?”

“This is on me. This whole thing, it’s on me.” Mark shrugs sadly.

Phil goes back to bed, dreams of Dan, in his plant sweater (Dream Phil says _I hate that sweater I told you_ ), building a replica of the National floor plan in his mother’s rock garden. It’s the fourth exit Phil, Dream Dan says. Don’t forget.

~*~

Dan wears a silver sparkly jacket that makes Mark say _I’m blind, my eyes!_ as the light hits it and sends kaleidoscope colours across their hall, across Dan’s face and into his hair.

Phil says “just be careful."

Dan raises his eyebrows. “It’ll be fine. They’ll want to impress her so badly, she’s got a 30 piece priceless art collection. And the Monet that went missing. They’re going to let her do anything or go anywhere she wants. And let her date go anywhere _he_ wants” he points finger guns at himself, clicks his tongue. “We’ll have it done in the first ten minutes. Then, champagne” - he’s trying so hard to be cheerful, slightly helpless edge to his smile, like it could slip at any moment.

“Just” Phil starts a completely different sentence in his head but ends up saying “just make sure she has a good time.”

Dan’s face softens. “I will. She will. I promise.”

Melody comes to collect Dan in a black estate with a driver. She has a huge embroidered tote bag that contains three paintings, two of her collection as a decoy, and New York Movie. Dan had helped with that. Phil leans through the window and says “don’t keep him out too late” to which she laughs, in a not entirely reassuring way. Phil pats the car roof three times before it pulls away, the glitter of Dan’s jacket visible right until the end of their street.

~*~

He’s only back in the flat for two seconds before Mark says “it’s my fault.”

Phil says “Mark” at the same time as another voice says “well, maybe 20%.”

Phil spins to see PJ, sat at the piano seat, soft grey knit and soft brown curls, a suitcase at his feet.

“Sorry to drop in like this” PJ says. “But, you know, in the circumstances. I thought that we should all be together. Tyler and Louise are on their way.”

Phil says “oh, of course. That makes sense.”

“You have spare rooms, right? If not Mark and I can spoon.”

Mark says “20%?”

“Fine. 10%. I told you it was a bad idea when it happened, adopting some random from the gallery. We never did find out who he worked for.”

“No one,” Phil interrupts. “I think no one. But I think he wanted to. Work with someone, that is.”

PJ blinks at him. “Don’t get sympathetic. Louise said he wants to catch us all. In a trap. And he’s smart, he’s really really -”

As if on cue, there’s a knock at their door. Mark answers it to reveal Louise and someone Phil vaguely recognises, a swoosh of white blond hair. He says “Tyler?” as a guess, and Tyler, delighted to be remembered, says “Phil!” in as happy a way as anyone has ever said it.

Louise has bags and bags, laptop cases and briefcases of equipment, that Mark easily deposits in the study.

Tyler says “hey, it’s like old times. All the gang back together.”

Louise, drily, says “if only it was under nicer circumstances.”

PJ says “did you sweep the flat downstairs?”

“What, like clean it?” Phil replies, confused.

PJ’s mouth opens, just for a second, before he closes it, takes a breath and says “take me there.”

~*~

The sweep appears to consist of PJ running his hand under tables and inside drawers while grumbling _of course there’s nothing, he’s so CLEVER_. There isn’t one single item in the flat, not a speck of dust. The only thing PJ finds is an envelope, A4, sellotaped to the underneath of the bedside table, too flat and light to contain anything of interest, according to PJ, as he tears it open.

The envelope is full of newspaper cuttings, small little squares that Phil initially thinks are adverts but they’re not. Of course. PJ sighs. “Why would he keep bits of newspaper?”

“No, they’re -”

“Missed Connections!” PJ says. “Hey, I love these. I saw you on the tube to Oxford Street, you were wearing a green goat, I was the guy with the - what?”

“They’re from Jack. About Mark.”

_Me: dyed my hair green because You: dyed yours red. You: thought it was hysterical, that we looked like crayons. People see us and assume that we’re together. Me: not correcting them._

_I: think I scared You. In the end. Didn’t I. On the last one. If we could rewind it I would do it differently. I would put it right to please You._

PJ says “what, are you serious?” and starts arranging the pieces in one neat row.

~*~

(Jack saw Mark for the final time just after he had stolen Modern Rome, a job that Mark had said was ridiculous, that it was too much, the painting was worth too much, it was crazy. A job where Mark had shouted _stop, seriously, stop, think about this_ through his earpiece the entire time, but had still been there waiting at the end because this was Mark, a  good person, such a good person, how could Jack have even deluded himself enough to think that he deserved Mark in his life? Afterwards Mark said “I’m going to take a break. For a while. I think you should too” and there had been something in his eyes, not fear necessarily but some kind of uneasiness when Jack had held Modern Rome aloft, the whole cityscape in his hands. Jack said “wow, okay, where should we go?” and Mark, for once not dodging a difficult conversation, said “no, Jack. Just me. I think it’s best that it’s just me.”)

~*~

Phil, attempting to arrange the cuttings in something approaching (what he thinks is) chronological order, suddenly says “oh” aloud. If we could rewind it I would do it differently. Could it have been different. What happens when the jobs run out.

PJ, reading through them at a slower pace, says “the set-up” half to himself. To Phil, he says “oh, that means -”

“I know. Nothing happens without the set-up,” Phil recites.

“If we rewind," PJ says, hesitates, “but, rewind to what? Like none of this ever happened?” he stops, looks at Phil. “Oh. Like none of it ever happened. No stolen paintings, no jobs, no Felix, no us. Just, what, him and Mark?”

Phil leans over, reads the messages again, “it doesn’t make sense. I mean, he’s hurt, and he’s lashing out, I guess, but it _doesn’t make sense_.”

(Dan texts _painting in archives probably won’t find it for months but is better that way melody having good time i promise_

_i think that you should have come too now being back in the tate when you’re not here is weird it’s like i’m seeing you everywhere but maybe that happens anyway_

_i’m not drunk i swear_ )

“He said a finale? At the National?” when Phil nods PJ says “but what was the finale meant to be? What did he say?”

“I don’t know. He just said that I’d ruined it. And that it wasn’t a trap for me.”

PJ reads the Missed Connections, from start to finish. “Then what? Is he jealous of you and Dan? Does he want to separate you or something?”

“I think he’s jealous but I don’t know if it’s about us. Not completely.”

PJ gathers the papers together, back into the envelope, and says “well, we both know who the best person to ask is. Other than Jack.”

Phil says “Mark”

PJ nods. “Something went down. But what. I mean, we need to sit, all of us, and he needs to go through the whole thing. Before this guy gets us all found because he’s heartbroken or whatever. I’m not getting caught, I never got caught and it’s not starting now.”

“Just, wait until Dan’s there. To do the talking and everything,” Phil says. “That’s all.”

On the walk back upstairs PJ suddenly pats him on the back and says “hey, Phil. On my third job I was in the MET. Lovely place, if you haven’t been. I memorised that floor plan a million times, I _dreamt_ about it. I could have walked through it with my eyes closed. And you know what happened, on that actual job?”

Phil says “what?”

PJ smiles. “I took the wrong exit. Second instead of the fifth, not even close.” He pats Phil’s back again, grasps at his shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, okay?”

Phil stops, step in midair, says “thanks PJ.”

PJ looks mystified. “For what? And, by the way, you still haven’t offered me tea. And I’m a _guest_ ” but he keeps his hand on Phil’s back, all the way into their flat.

~*~

Phil waits on the balcony for Dan to come back, trying not to look too much like he’s pondering when his husband will return from war. Mark, Louise and PJ take a room each, Tyler is curled up like a dormouse on the sofa, only his hair visible. Phil is somehow reassured by their presence, his flat full of art thieves, a fact that would have seemed bizarre to him, months ago. Not so much now.

Dan, when he gets out of the car, gives him a quizzical look, up from the street, and is up on the balcony in record time, like he’d apparated there, a flickering flame of silver sequins in Phil’s arms.

“She had a good time” he says, right into the spot under Phil’s ear that he _knows_ makes Phil’s breath catch. “She’s going to show the paintings, as long as we go to opening night. She likes you. A lot.”

Phil says “does she” and his voice is a breathy sigh that makes Dan sigh in return, against his skin.

“Yes. She didn’t talk about anything else.” Dan leans back. “That’s fine though. You’re my favourite topic of conversation.”

“I thought you _weren’t_ drunk.”

“I’m not,” Dan says, and kisses him, like a promise, like a start.

“We have guests,” Phil protests against Dan’s mouth. Or doesn’t protest, just points out. “ _Everyone’s_ here. Tyler’s right there, on the sofa.”

Dan ducks his head, noses at the hinge of Phil’s jaw. “We can be quiet.”

“ _I_ can’t” Phil points out, fairly. “You know I can’t.”

Dan says, “I’ve been thinking about you all night. It was the weirdest thing. Like the whole gallery was full of you even though you weren’t there. All the places I would stand and watch you from, all the times I just wanted to…...you know. I think it’ll always be the place I found you again. When I’m there I can’t breathe from the memory of it. You know.”

It’s not a question. You know. Of course he knows. When Dan kisses him he’s not quiet, but then Dan knows that already, knows exactly what noises Phil makes and catches them all, knows exactly how to trace his fingers up Phil’s sides, pull his head gently to the left so that he can bite at Phil’s neck.

Phil gasps, as he always does, loud and airy, and smacks at Dan’s back. “Seriously. I can’t be quiet.”

“Well then don’t be,” says Dan, and winks obnoxiously.

So they’re not.

~*~

Later, afterwards, Phil scrolls back through Dan’s messages, out on the balcony because he can’t sleep, tricking himself into thinking that the begonias look more alive this late at night. Or early in the morning.

_i mean i am a tiny bit drunk but that’s because i saw the picnic benches you remember i remember you sat so far away from me_

_i used to stand in the gift shop entrance just to see you even just a glimpse of you_

_the paintings have trackers. Someone should have worked that out_

_remember that girl getting lost in the pianos remember you sitting next to me not saying anything listening to me_

_this is like going back in time its like my heart is going to burst_

Phil scrolls back. The paintings have trackers. Someone should have worked that out. He says _what_ , has texted it before he can even think.

Jack replies instantly. _Three days. That’s the time I’m giving. And that’s if you can get through the jobs. If they’re not all returned after three days then I’m pressing the button._

_Oh and impressive kick. Didn’t know you had that in you_

As if thinking that he hasn’t fully got his message across via text, Jack phones immediately, almost before Phil’s had time to read the message. Phil answers but doesn’t say hello because Jack, at this point, doesn’t deserve his good manners.

Jack says “oh. Okay. I just wanted -”

“We found your envelope,” Phil says. “With the messages.”

Jack says “ha” flatly. “Suppose you’re going to tell me you feel sorry for me now. That we can talk about it again.”

“We can. I promise we can. But you can’t carry on -”

“I meant it. Three days. For the three that are left. Your list. Tell Mark the trackers are in the frames, he’ll never be able to find them. And if you don’t get -”

“And if we do?”

“You won’t” Jack says. “You can’t. And you thought you could keep him with you.”

Phil says “ _why_ are you -”

“You want to talk to me?” Jack interrupts. “Phil. Is that what you want?”

“I -”

“If I texted you a location, right now. Would you come and meet me?”

“No,” Phil says. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Jack says “well done. You’re learning. Three days. Three paintings. The last three. I’ll be watching. Tell them it’s a test. Mark shouldn’t be surprised. You read the messages. I scared him. In the end. I only wanted to be a good person, Phil, that’s all. How can I be, with this?”

Phil says “no wait, I -” but Jack has already hung up.

Three days. Three paintings. The last three. Lady Agnew. Lavender Mist. Almond Blossoms. In the vault of Melody Carter’s private gallery.

Dan, a flickering flame of silver sequins in Phil’s arms, in their fort made of paintings. Don’t go anywhere. Never.

~*~

_Me: could have been different, if I’d really stayed just a bored looking tour guide, could it have been different with You You You You: a whole list of masterpieces for You. I saw You at New York Movie, You looked at Me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- New York Movie actually resides at the Museum of Modern Art in (funnily enough!) New York. 
> 
> \- The heist and backwards-heist described in this chapter are mostly inspired by the robbery at the Museu Chacara do Céu (where the thieves used a carnival party as a distraction and stole a Monet, Matisse and Picasso, amongst others). 
> 
> \- (septiplier heavy chapter, away!)
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr finally (and I’m mostly very confused by it) - I’m over [here](https://leblonde.tumblr.com), come say hi and ask me stuff! 
> 
> (And, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who nominated “i don’t blame you much (for wanting to be free)” and “don’t trust a song that’s flawless” for the Phanfic Awards 2016!! I’m flattered and amazed! It means a lot, and seeing all of your comments is just more awesome that I can explain, be it here, tumblr or Twitter (whoever made the video of plushie Phil missing the fourth exit, it was amazing and made my entire week, reveal yourself! <3 ) 
> 
> The voting post is [here](http://phanficawards.tumblr.com/post/155307965385/phanfic-awards-2016-voting): if you wanted to vote for my ramblings, or anything else that you’ve enjoyed this year :) )


	9. 7. lady agnew - john singer sargent

(His mother, months and months ago, had asked “what happened to Dylan? Why did we never meet Dylan?”

Phil said “oh, he emigrated. Really suddenly. He was quite similar to Dan though, in lots of ways.”

They were in York, for a wedding (without Cornelia, so Martyn was glued to his phone; without Dan, so Phil was glued to his; he and Dan have never really readjusted to prolonged time apart), he was wearing a shirt and tie with tiny polka dots which apparently clashed, judging by his mother’s fond expression when he’d met her downstairs in the hotel.

“In lots of ways?”

“Well, in every way, actually.”

His mother tilted her head to one side and said “they’re alike then?” in a leading sort of tone that, looking back, he should probably have picked up on. If he hadn’t been full of wine and distracted by his phone.

He said “you have no idea” and his mother had sighed and said, “no, I suppose I don’t.”)

~*~

He tries his best to make it through the lounge without waking Tyler, Jack’s message still held on his phone screen. Not the _impressive kick_ one, the one before, the _three days, that’s all the time I’m giving_. He predictably bumps into the arm of the sofa on the way, Tyler mutters disapprovingly but doesn’t wake up.

Dan is still asleep; his hair a mess of brown waves, his hand stretched out to Phil’s (empty) side of the bed, his bruised knuckles covered with Disney princess plasters because they were the only kind that Louise had in her bag (she’d run out of Belle. Dan hadn’t been impressed). Bruised knuckles because, two days ago, he had punched a window to try and get into a basement where Phil potentially could be (where Phil _was_ , of course. Dan always knows where Phil is). Phil had slept cradling the injured hand against his heart, running his thumb over the bruises like he could magically heal them, somehow. ( _It’s just some scratches_ Dan had said, trying to be casual. He’d winced in the middle of Phil taking his ridiculous jacket off, Phil had sprung back. _It doesn’t hurt anymore. Come back. It’s just bruises_ )

Phil wants to lie back down, to pull Dan’s hand up to his chest, pull the covers over, and pretend this whole thing isn’t happening, had never happened in the first place. To stay in the moment before he has to tell him.

He sits, jostles the mattress enough that Dan, not a morning person at the best of times, makes a sad grumbling noise. Phil says “Dan, Dan, _Dan_ ” and pokes at his cheek.

Dan says something that sounds like “mmprgh.”

“I have to talk to you.”

Dan opens his eyes. The frown line between his brows, the one Phil had been so proud of eradicating, is back in full force. Phil touches his finger to it. Dan blinks up at him and says “what is it?” like he doesn’t actually want to know what it is.

“I’m going to tell you, but you have to let me tell you the whole thing from start to finish, okay?”

Dan looks concerned, pushes himself so he’s sitting up, “okay. But before you start, are you -”

“ _I’m_ fine,” Phil says, preempting the question. “Or, sort of fine. Anyway. I spoke to Jack. Just now. He phoned me” Dan starts to say something, then stops. Phil says the next two sentences on an exhale of breath, almost as one word. “He said the paintings have trackers. He wants the last three returned in three days or he presses the button.” Off Dan’s look he adds “the button on his desk. The link to the police.”

“Of course they have _trackers_ ,” Dan says, finally, after staring at Phil, wide-eyed, for a few minutes. “Of course they do. I should have known that. I should have _guessed_ that. It’s the most obvious thing for him to do.”

“Three in three days,” Phil repeats. “And he’ll know exactly where we are and what painting we’re moving.”

Dan rolls himself, literally, out of bed. “I need to wake up PJ. I need to wake up _everyone_.” He rubs at his eyes, attempts to shake his hair into some semblance of his fringe. “Why did he phone you? Why is he still phoning you?”

“I think I know why. We found all the Missed Connections, me and PJ. The things he’d written to Mark. He kept them all in an envelope downstairs, we read through them and -”

“You and PJ went downstairs?”

“He wanted to do a sweep. I think that was the right word anyway.”

Dan brings his hands to his forehead, covers his entire face for a second, and exclaims the same argh noise that he makes when he’s losing a particularly easy game of Mario Kart, or when Phil changes the settings on his computer from left hand mode. “I should have done a sweep. I should have thought about the trackers. I’m so -”

_That’s precisely why you’re here, why I found you in the first place. To throw Dan off his game. Is that flattering? To know that you’re enough to affect someone that much?_

Phil says “distracted” miserably. Should have done a sweep, should have thought about the trackers, should have questioned the paintings downstairs, should have worked everything out earlier. “You’re so distracted.”

Dan, for once not softening the blow, says “I am. I really am.”

Phil says “sorry” because he feels like he should.

“What for? I told you, I was good at it before because I had nothing that I was scared of being taken away from, I had nothing to _lose_. Now I do. _That’s_ why I’m distracted. Don’t you dare say sorry.”

Dan has to lean over Phil to get to his hoodie, on the floor at the other side of the bed. He presses into Phil’s side, a little, and Phil grabs at his waist and holds on. Dan says “I know, I know”, clings back for a second, “I have to go and wake everyone. Come with me.”

Phil says “no, stay here.”

Dan says “I can’t” which is _not_ the usual answer to that statement, isn’t their usual back-and-forth. He blinks at Phil, surprised, like an actor who's forgotten his lines.

Phil thinks _always, you’re meant to say always_ and loosens his grip just as Dan tightens his.

“I didn’t mean - when this is over we can stay here. We can stay here _forever_ , I promise.”

“I know what you meant,” Phil says, still a little stunned, and disentangles himself completely (he and Dan always end up a combined tangle of limbs, no matter how they’re sitting). “You wake everyone, I can make tea. Or something.”

It takes him a while though, the tea. He has to re-do the pot twice due to accidentally putting cold water in, for forgetting the tea leaves. Tyler eventually appears, hair in several white blond peaks, gives him a pitying look and starts getting the mugs ready.

Tyler says “hey. I know we haven’t been properly introduced -”

“I saw you at the Tate,” Phil tells him, as if Tyler’s forgotten. “You said are you okay Phil and I didn’t even notice that you knew my name.”

Tyler spots their One Direction mug and grabs it from the back of the shelf. “Of course, I knew your name. Everyone did.”

“You stayed working there? After the job?”

“You can’t stay doing this for too long. It’s not real, it’s not even close to being real. It only starts being real when the stakes get high. You’ve gotta get a real life at some point” Tyler shrugs. “I used to dream about it, I was in the Musee d’Orsay, trying to work out how to get a Rodin sculpture, but secretly wishing I was at home watching Real Housewives. With a pizza.”

“Is that what you wish you were doing now?”

Tyler smiles at him and says “these guys are like my family. I’ll do anything to help.”

Phil says “what Rodin sculpture was it? In the -”

Tyler laughs, high pitched, the bubbly giggle of a cartoon character, and says “you and Dan have the same abrupt changes of subject, you know that? How do you even talk to each other?”

“I know it’s a random question.”

“It’s not. You probably saw it in the National. It was Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the Underworld” he gives Phil a long, considering look. “You’re thinking it’s a metaphor. It’s not. Not everything is.”

Phil says “I know. It’s just that, everything, over the past few weeks -”

Tyler starts pouring the tea, Phil can’t even recall boiling the water. “Phil, you’re thinking about the negative. You’re thinking that Orpheus couldn’t save her, that she got stuck there. Which is really poetic and whatever, but you can’t think like that.”

“You haven’t heard what I’ve got to tell you yet.”

Tyler, moving mugs to a tray, says “Orpheus and Eurydice found each other again in the Elysian Fields, and stayed together for all eternity in the nicest part of the Underworld”. Off Phil’s look he says “I was a fake tour guide on that job, I’m full of interesting facts.”

Phil takes the tray from his hands, almost instantly spilling tea from at least two mugs. “I didn’t know that it had a happy ending. Eventually.”

“All the best stories do” Tyler says, and takes the tray back.

~*~

PJ says “well, I expected this”, still in his pyjamas, sat at the piano bench, facing everyone else on the sofa. “I absolutely knew that something like this would happen.”

Dan, incredulous, says “what, no you _didn’t_. I literally spoke to you two weeks ago and you were still freaking out about Barcelona, the gallery owner’s son. Don’t come in and be all -”

“Not _this_ exactly. But, you know, that someone would eventually go rogue, or whatever.”

Dan repeats “ _go rogue_? He’s head of security at the fucking National Gallery, that’s not going rogue, that’s -”

Louise says “boys. I feel like we’re focusing on the wrong thing here.”

PJ sighs and says “well, I feel like there’s someone who should probably tell us the whole story now.”

Everyone looks at Mark who, for some unknown reason, turns to look at Phil, appealingly, like Phil can somehow save him from this whole situation. Phil, stood on the outskirts of the group, shrugs at him, helplessly.

Louise at least tries to look encouraging. “I know it might be hard Mark, I know that -”

Mark says “I’m telling Phil first.”

Dan says “what, on his own?”

“Yes,” Mark looks apologetic. “There’s things that….I just think it’s for the best. I’ll come back and tell you guys then. If that’s okay.”

PJ says “of course it’s okay, we’ve got loads of time” with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Louise actually gets up off the sofa to elbow him in the side (she looks pristine, like a filtered Instagram post, even at this time of the morning). While PJ says _ow!_ she says “it’s fine Mark, take all the time that you need”.

~*~

They go the flat downstairs, as apparently even one of the bedrooms wasn’t private enough. Mark wanders around, seeming far too big for the space, bumping into all the tables, with an incredibly sad look on his face at the lack of decoration, all of the grey. He keeps touching things (running a finger through the dust on top of the coffee table, patting the arm of the sofa) and sighing. In the bedroom, he looks at the futon, blanket neatly folded on top, and says “gosh”, a loud, friendly word that echoes in the emptiness of the space.

Phil wonders if this is how Mark is, to Jack, a person too bright for the dullness of his life, too loud, too much.

“How did he live here?” Mark says. “ _Did_ he live here?”

“I don’t think so” Phil rummages underneath the bedside table, where PJ had taped the envelope back. “I don’t think he was here much, really.”

Mark watches him retrieve the envelope. “You talked to him a lot?”

“I don’t know if it constitutes _a lot_ ,” Phil says, hands him the Missed Connections. “You should see these. I mean, they’re about you. He wrote them for you.”

Mark empties the contents out onto the bed and says “oh, of course they are” which doesn’t make much sense.

“I can go on the balcony while you read them, if you want. If you’d prefer to read them by yourself.”

Mark traces his fingers, lightly, over the scattered bits of paper and says “no, it’s fine. Just give me a sec.”

Phil says “okay” but goes out onto the balcony anyway, the key left in the the door. He gives Mark more than a sec, more than a lot of secs actually. The balcony is dusty and full of petals from his poor, refusing to survive, begonias; fluttering down from their balcony above, so shrivelled that their redness is now a sad off-brown. They hadn’t lasted very long once they realised he was back.

Mark, from inside but may as well be outside, says “you can come back in now.”

He’s in the living room, bits of paper laid out on the coffee table. He looks a little shaken. Phil sits next to him on the sofa and says “you can start wherever you want. And you don’t have to -”

“I got recruited” Mark says “for this job, if you can call it a job. I used to do some work for someone who knew Felix, surveillance and stuff. Kind of like you, security mainly. I got this email, from Felix, asking to meet me, and then I _met_ him and…..you’ve met Felix, though, right? I don’t need to explain that.”

“I’ve met him.”

“He’s pretty good at picking people” Mark says, regretfully. “People who’re lonely, bored of their current lives. I was only going to do one job, just the surveillance. Just for the money, you know. I needed the -”

Phil shifts awkwardly in his seat. “You don’t need to justify this to me.”

“I’m not amazing at it. I’m good at some parts but mostly, I’m too….I’m too _me_ about it. I’m too loud, too open, really bad at the faking it stuff. Which, uh, brings us to Jack, I guess.”

Mark has arranged the Missed Connections into a row, a different order from what PJ had attempted yesterday. Phil taps the first, _I saw you at New York Movie_ , and says “it started here. He said that.”

“I was the only one on that job. And Felix _never_ gave me jobs on my own, ever. But it was supposed to be easy, they used to have a ridiculous party in that gallery where people took the paintings off the walls and everything. And I really wanted to do it, you know, it’s like being given a test that you really want to pass.”

Phil moves to the second, _your every movement is too big, too obvious_ , “but he saw you? Noticed what you were doing?”

Mark points to the third, _overspilling with feelings_, “he tried to talk to me a few times. He was a tour guide, was around the painting a lot. Kept trying to talk to me about it and then eventually just said he knew what I was doing. That’s what the _I can help, you know_ is. That’s what he said.”

“And you said, _I don’t usually get trusted with stuff by myself_ ” Phil reads the next section of text.

“I did” Mark sighs. “That’s me. Overspilling with feelings. Then there’s these three; he kept saying I was going to get caught, then that he was working there, but, working like I was working.”

“Like on a job?” when Mark nods, Phil says “but that’s not true. He was a tour guide. He really was.”

“I know that _now_. He said he worked alone and I said _isn’t that kinda lonely sometimes?_ and I knew he wanted to say yes, but -”

“Mark” Phil interrupts. “Sorry to ask an obvious question here, but did you like him?”

“I liked him. But I didn’t _like_ him.”

“But you knew he liked you?”

“Not at first” Mark says. “It got to be more obvious. As time went on. He just seemed very lonely, to me. He was at the gallery and he wanted to help me so badly, and then the night of the party, of the actual job, I went to get started and he was _there_ , and he already had it. New York Movie, he just handed it to me, like _I got this for you_ , and I had no idea how we didn’t know who this person was. I mean, you get to know each other, in your circle and the others. But no one had ever mentioned him.”

The Missed Connection says _take me with you, let me come with you_ so Phil says “and you did.”

“I felt sorry for him and he’d helped me and I was pretty lonely too, I guess, so -”

“You don’t have to justify this to me” Phil repeats. “He told you his name was Jack.”

Mark looks confused “yeah.”

“It’s not. That’s not his name. He signed it, in the guestbook on the Isle of Man, but you probably didn’t see. That’s what this one means” he presses his finger to the cutting that says _we only talk about the jobs, don’t we?_ “You’re on their noticeboard too, but he cut you out of the photo.”

Mark blinks and says “then what’s his name?”

Phil, for a second, feels a twinge of the same sadness Jack probably felt, every time Mark missed something, _maybe you never cared enough to notice_ , signing his real name in the guestbook, right under Mark’s nose. And Mark never noticed, never really paid that much attention, because the depth of feeling just wasn’t there. Leaving clues that Mark just didn’t have the want to see.

“It would have been on his name badge,” Phil says. “When you met him. That was his real job, his real life, he would have had his real name.”

He’s expecting Mark’s answer but it still hurts when Mark says, quietly, “oh, I didn’t look.”

Phil reads the next one, the _what happens when I can no longer bring you things?_ one, the one that ends _I only wanted you to see me_. Mark sits expectantly, waiting for Phil to reveal Jack’s real name, but Phil doesn’t. It’s not for him to do. “So, you took him with you.”

“We worked on a few jobs.”

“Nine jobs” Phil clarifies. “New York Movie first, Modern Rome last.”

“Nine” Mark agrees. “And he was _so good_ at it. He _is_ so good at it. They were all my jobs, but he always got there before me. He’d steal them the day before we’d decided, or he’d go off route, or he’d do the most impressive thing rather than the easiest."

“That was for you though. To show off to you,” Phil says. “You must have seen that.”

“I thought that he never said anything, or never acted on it, then we could just. Exist not talking about it, I guess.” Mark grimaces at himself. “I’m terrible with difficult conversations, and I just thought that one day maybe he’d get over it.”

“But this one sounds like he told you,” Phil says. “The _misjudged the whole thing_ one, the -” he can’t say the next one, the _heart isn’t breaking but slowly splintering_. “This one. Did something -”

“The last four paintings, in the actual order,” Mark says. “Boreas. The Isle of Man. Then, Impression, Sunrise. Melody Carter. I didn’t like that one. I thought it was unnecessary. Then, Lady Agnew, in Scotland. He was really distracted, I think he hadn’t liked the Melody Carter job. It played on his mind.”

“And?”

“He kissed me," Mark says. “On the roof. I’d gone to find him because he’d done the job on the day before we’d arranged again, and he kissed me. And then, Modern Rome, the job no one wanted to do, Felix used to suggest it sometimes, and everyone would say no because it was just too much. Too expensive and too difficult, a famous painting in a really famous museum. It was almost like a joke.”

“But he did it?”

“I told him not to. There’s nowhere you can go from there. And I knew it was because of me, just like this never ending list of ways to impress me. Where would it stop?”

Phil says “you could have told everyone this, why did you want to tell me first?”

“Because…..it’s a little similar, isn’t it? The start anyway. To, uh, you. And Dan.”

“I’d noticed.”

“But the ending was maybe what you thought was going to happen, and what you really didn’t want to happen, so I wanted to tell you on your own.”

Phil instantly knows what Mark is going to say. Instantly. He doesn’t say anything, holds himself still in anticipation.

Mark says “I think it’s part of the reason why I wanted to help Dan so bad, you know. To be with you. Because I knew I hadn’t handled it right, and you have to understand that I -”

“What’s the ending?” Phil says, his voice slightly shrill.

“I left him.”

Mark leaves a pause, for Phil to react, or to say something, but Phil _can’t_. He sits staring at Mark, who drops his eyes, can’t look Phil in the face.

“I _left_ him. I said we should take a break, he said okay, where would we go, and I said no, that we should go by ourselves. And I knew that he wouldn’t agree so I said we’d meet, again, outside the Met. At some point.”

Phil feels a tightening across his chest, in his heart. “And you never met him.”

“This whole thing, Phil, it was because of me. It just kept escalating, the jobs kept getting more risky, he needed to be separate from me. I was just dragging him further into -”

“You left him” Phil says. “You left him, agreed to meet him again, and then _never showed up_.”

Mark hangs his head.

“That…...that’s a really cruel thing to do,” Phil finally says, and never imagined even saying those words to Mark, of all people. Mark, who cooks when he’s stressed. Mark, who caught Phil as he fell out of a window. Mark, who hugs people right off their feet. “You should have spoken to him. You should have -”

“I know. I know it was. But what could I do?”

“I don’t know. But then, I’m Jack, aren’t I? In this scenario. I’m the security guard who met an art thief at a painting, and got left. Except Dan came back.”

“It was a spineless thing to do,” Mark says. “I get that. It was the wrong decision to make, I see that now. But at the time I thought it was the only way.”

“What happened next?”

“He went on some kind of art theft rampage. Used to message me, showing what he’d got, like I would be impressed.”

“And did you reply?”

Mark says “yes.”

Phil says “ _Mark_.”

“Not every time, but just sometimes. What could I do? He was on his own.”

“You spoke to him in Paris, outside the hotel. When me and Dan went to the room. After Madame Darbonne.”

“I should have guessed then. What the whole plan was. Should have known. But I was just really angry, because of you.”

Phil thinks _well I’m just distracting everyone, aren’t I?_ and wonders if this is flattering, that people care so much. He’s not sure. He doesn’t know what to say, folds his hands neatly in his lap and looks at the floor. The grey floor in this grey lonely flat, Jack’s safehouse. _Not that I ever used it very much_ Jack had said. _I didn’t need to_. Presumably because he never needed to feel safe. Never wanted to.

Mark says “Phil. I’m sorry.”

Phil stands and says “why are you apologising to _me_?”

Mark stands too, arms open wide in appeal. “You know why.”

“You can tell everyone else. Now that you’ve told me. And I do appreciate you telling me on my own. I really do. I’m just going to stay here. For a bit.”

“Do you want me to send Dan down?” Mark keeps his arms open, like the prelude to an embrace, like he’s saying please forgive me.

Phil knows that he won’t be able to tell Dan this story, there is no possible way. He won’t be able to get the words out. He shakes his head, no, at Mark. “I can’t tell him. You have to tell him.”

Mark looks pained to the point of anguish, overspilling with feelings, but he nods, yes, back at Phil, and leaves.

~*~

_it was maybe the wrong phrasing to use. You’re not really famous to me, it’s more that I’m really, horribly, jealous of you._

Modern Rome happened a week after Manchester, Phil remembers Dan saying that. At some point after that, Mark left Jack and then never met him again. Then for all those months afterwards Jack apparently stole the most ludicrous number of artworks and sculptures that anyone had ever seen, enough for even Felix to be (eventually) freaked out. All while apparently holding down a job as head of security at the National Gallery (which, Phil realises, is a genius move. He would know about the security _everywhere_ ). All for Mark, a never-ending list of masterpieces for Mark. Mark, who didn’t even see his real name, when it was on a gilt edged badge right in front of him.

_they don’t realise the aftermath do they? We realise, don’t we, you and me?_

Phil tries to piece it together in his mind. Jack had stolen things, it hadn’t worked, no matter how much he stole, even stealing Modern Rome, it hadn’t made Mark come stay with him. And it hadn’t made Mark come back, no matter how neverending the list was. So, trying the opposite. Could it have been different? If we could rewind. _He said once, that maybe if things were different._

But, he’s not sure. It seems more difficult than that, angrier. An all consuming heartbreak-anger. The sadness of someone who got left behind and no one went to find him. Felix had apparently sat back and happily taken every stolen item that Jack brought his way. Even Dan said, casually, _he mainly worked on his own_ , and no one had ever questioned why.

_maybe I’m just trying to stop you from going the same way I did. Because no one helped me_

Phil had asked, sat on a little chair in the centre of an office in the National, how did no one notice you here? Jack, perched on a desk, specialising in not being noticed. Writing his real name in a guestbook, on a badge over his heart, and _no one_ noticed.

Or is it simpler? Jack, muffled through a phone receiver, Phil on his balcony, trying to pretend his plants are all alive. _I only wanted to be a good person, Phil, that’s all. How can I be, with this?_

Maybe, Phil thinks, it’s a mixture of everything. Which makes it all the more difficult to judge. He knows, now, that 80% of his conversations with Jack were full of lies, but the other 20%, the moments where the shade dropped. Who knows.

~*~

Dan comes to find him, about forty minutes later, still out on the balcony, trying to catch dead begonia petals in his hand.

Dan stands beside him and says “are you okay?”

“I guess” Phil lets his collection of petals scatter to the floor, they tangle in the laces of his Converse. “I mean. I feel sorry for him now, a bit. I still want to stop him but I get where he’s coming from”

“Mark’s not a bad person. He just panicked."

“I _know_ he’s not, but he left him. He said he’d come back and he didn’t.”

Dan says “I know.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? He was stealing paintings because he loved Mark, and I’m returning them because I love you” he turns to face Dan. “That’s weird, right?”

Dan’s face goes through a mixture of five expressions before landing on sad. “It’s not weird. I don’t think so.”

“He wanted to keep him with him.”

“Phil, we can’t feel sorry for him. He’s the one with the plan here. And we still don’t know what he’s thinking, not really.”

“I think he’s angry with you. With all of you. With the whole thing” Phil gestures back to the coffee table, the scattered newspaper cuttings, being taken out of order by the breeze from outside. “Have you seen those?”

Dan follows his eyeline. “The Missed Connections?”

“Have you read them?”

“I don’t think they’re for me to read,” Dan says, solemnly.

Phil repeats “I feel sorry for him. What happened to him -”

“He caught you! He was going to use you to try and catch me -”

“ - was what I thought had happened to me.”

Dan stops speaking, mouth still open on _me_ , presses his eyes closed. “I know that. I _know_ that.”

“I would have left you Missed Connections. I would have taken out every page of the Metro, I -”

“It’s a different situation” Dan interrupts. “It’s completely different. I’m not Mark and you’re not Jack.”

“But I _could_ have been. I would have done anything if I thought it would have brought you back. That’s all he was doing, right? He stole to try and get Mark to come back, and I’m doing this to try and get you to _stay_ , and -”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Dan shouts, a sudden raise in voice that scares the swans in the canal below and makes Phil jump. “How many times can we have this same conversation? Do you not believe me?”

They stare at each other for a second. Some of the dead begonia petals are caught in Phil’s fringe, he doesn’t bother to brush them away.

Phil says “I believe you. You know I do.”

Dan huffs but he looks instantly appeased.

“I’m just saying it might not exactly be completely in your control now.”

Dan steps forward and untangles each petal, one by one, from Phil’s hair. “I meant what I said before. Nothing is going to take me away from you.”

It sounds, to Phil’s mind, like something a character in a movie would say, right before something awful happens. Like it’s my last day before retirement; this is going to be the best Christmas ever; or all sorts of other foreshadowing things.

Dan repeats “nothing.”

~*~

By the time they get back upstairs Tyler has made a moodboard (in various shades of lilac) for the three remaining jobs. Everyone’s faces seem to indicate that this is a usual occurrence.

(“Because” PJ says, “when you’ve got three days to do three jobs, the first thing you do is spend an hour making a moodboard. Of course.”)

The board divided into three sections. People Jack wants to catch: Dan, PJ, Tyler, Louise, Felix(?), a list of other names Phil doesn’t recognise. People Jack does not want to catch: Phil. People Jack has very complicated feelings towards: Mark.

“I see where this is going,” Dan says. “And, no.”

There are sketches of the three paintings that are left, and then a list of galleries in London. The National and the Tate are both crossed off; obvious reasons for the former, Tyler’s actual place of work being the latter. **The Serpentine** is bolded and underlined, as is **The V &A** and **The Hayward**.

Dan says “the _V and A_? That’s a terrible idea, that’s a worse idea than the National.”

“We’re not exactly high on options here,” Tyler replies, startled out of staring at his version of Lavender Mist. “Not with three days. We can’t do the usual.”

~*~

(“There’s four main components,” Dan had said, at some point on the ferry back from the Isle of Man. “The set-up, that’s PJ, that’s always PJ. Then the surveillance, Mark or Louise. Maybe Mark _and_ Louise. Then two on the ground, one does the escape stuff, which is usually Tyler, and one does the out in the open stuff” he points to himself. “Me.”

“What does the out in the open stuff entail?” Phil had asked.

“Just, looking around. Being non-discript. Trying not to really talk to anyone to the point that they’ll remember you, but enough that they’ll tell you things. That sort of thing.”

“And you were good at that?” Phil is still disbelieving on this particular point. Dan is the most memorable person he’s ever met.

“I _was_ ” Dan replied. “But, then I met this security guard. You should have seen him.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah” Dan smiles at him. “Long story.”)

~*~

“So, there’s five of us,” PJ says.

Phil interrupts “six. There’s six."

PJ raises his eyebrows at Dan. Dan says “no. There’s five.”

“ _Six_. With me, I’m the six.”

Dan says “I don’t think -”

“Actually” Tyler interjects, gestures to the board. “We know, one million percent, that he’s the only one Jack actually doesn’t want to catch. Or, like, catch and keep caught.”

“All the more reason why he shouldn’t be there. Surveillance, he can do that. Louise, you could use the help right?” Dan’s voice has an air of desperation, cut at the end of his words.

Louise, perched on the arm of the comfiest chair, blanket wrapped around her, purses her lips because she doesn’t seem like she ever needs help, not from what Phil has seen. But he also knows that Louise has a huge soft spot for him, so the lip pursing is gone in an instant. “I suppose I could.”

“Actually,” Tyler pipes up again. “I think we’re all missing the most obvious plan here. Or does no one want to say it?”

There’s silence. Phil watches Louise and PJ share a look.

Tyler continues “it should be Mark and Phil. It’s obvious. He doesn’t want to catch Phil -”

“We don’t know that,” Dan says, voice high. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“- and Mark being there will throw him off. He won’t expect it” Tyler looks around at them all. “It’s obvious. Right?”

PJ holds his hands out to Dan, like he’s trying to calm him in advance. “I think that -”

“Does no one remember what happened last time?”

Mark, finally, from his spot on the sofa, speaks up. “It should be me. Tyler’s right.”

“But you can’t on your own,” PJ says. “I mean, no offence.”

Louise says “the way I see it, Tyler’s right. We need to do anything we can to make Jack lose concentration here. He won’t expect Mark. He won’t expect Phil, not after last time.” she gives Phil a weak smile. “Sorry.”

Phil says “that’s okay.”

Dan says “no, it’s _not_.”

“It makes sense!” PJ says. “You know it does. If it was anyone except Phil you’d be saying the same.”

“Which painting?” Tyler interjects. “What should we start with?”

Phil knows what Mark’s going to say before the words come out of his mouth. One of the last Missed Connections - a rooftop in Scotland, _misjudged the whole thing, didn’t I_ , the final crack of Jack’s heart that, presumably, caused the theft of Modern Rome. Caused a whole spree of art thefts.

“Lady Agnew” Mark says. “It should be that one.”

PJ, surprised, says “ _Lady Agnew_? The John Singer Sargent?”

“It should be that one.”

PJ says “I thought maybe we could do the Pollock, get it done before -”

“No” Mark says. “Lady Agnew.”

PJ seems to understand the hidden meaning. He looks at Mark, for a second, says “okay. Lady Agnew it is.” He taps Tyler’s drawing of her. “Are you ready for the plan?”

Dan says “but we haven’t decided -”

“We all go and have a perfectly normal day” PJ continues. “With whatever we’d be doing on a Friday, if we were in any way normal. Tyler’s doing a shift at work, me and Louise might go to a matinee somewhere. Normal.”

“If this was a normal day I’d be trying to hack into the Louvre's security system” Louise says, releasing herself from the blanket and standing up. She smiles at Phil. “Could never get the hang of that one. And now I guess I’ll never need to.”

“Do you have lessons? Classes? Anything?”

“I have one lesson,” Dan replies. “Phil doesn’t have any classes.”

“I’m on a leave of absence” Phil explains, to PJ.

Dan says “you’re on a _what_?”

“Okay!” PJ claps his hands together. “Normal day. Get yourself seen out, being average and completely unfazed by anything. That’s important. Get the Lady on the way back and meet us here”

~*~

“You’re on a _what_ ” Dan repeats, pulling on his most sensible of all his teaching jumpers (light brown, as loose as a potato sack. Phil hates it).

“A leave of absence, for a few weeks” Phil thinks he should probably email his tutor actually, to ask for more. “You can’t expect me to be going to classes while this is going on.”

“It’s important!”

“You literally dropped out of uni to steal stuff Dan.”

He’s never really worded that so bluntly. Dan stops in the middle of grabbing his teaching bag and, to Phil’s surprise, laughs (a rueful sort of noise, but a laugh all the same). “I know. I know. Who I am to lecture you about education? And here I am, on my way to teach impressionable children about music.”

“It’s fine” Phil says. “It’s only a few classes left, and I’ve got most of the work done. Really.”

Dan says “when this is over” but doesn’t finish the sentence.

~*~

They’re walking to the Tube, in silence, when Dan says, abruptly, “I hate that your mum thinks Dylan was a real person.”

Phil stops, in the middle of the street, hears the mutters as someone has to swerve to walk past him, “what? What’s brought this on?”

“I hate that she thinks he’s real. That he’s in _Japan_ , that he’s looking after _baby pandas_ ; she thinks he’s an amazing person that you should still be with if he hadn’t emigrated.”

“Dan,” Phil says, slowly. “He’s you.”

“Why did it have to be Japan? _We_ love Japan.”

“I know. That’s why. If you weren’t coming back then I liked to think that you were somewhere that you loved.”

“I think she thinks he’s going to swoop in from Japan at some point, and, like, take you away in his private plane, with the pandas, and -”

“Dan. There is no Dylan. He’s you. You want me to tell my mother that he’s you?”

“I think” Dan says, picking his words carefully. “That we should think of some way to tell everyone how -”

“You want me to tell people you’re an art thief?”

Dan starts, and Phil realises that he just used present tense. For the first time, in a long time. Dan blinks, says “oh, okay. Okay” and starts walking again.

Phil has to jog to keep up with him. He wants to say _no, I didn’t mean it, that’s all in the past_ but it’s not. It’s happening now.

~*~

Dan’s lesson is with Colin, a ten-year-old with a mop of black hair who Phil knows, for a fact, is Dan’s favourite student ( _I don’t have favourites_ Dan said, somewhat poutily _I love them all equally_ ). Colin is quiet, has a much louder, much younger brother, calls Dan “Mr Howell”, and only wants to learn music from Final Fantasy ( _I just happen to love Colin a tiny bit more_ ). When he’d arrived Dan had knelt right down to say hello, his hand looking huge on Colin’s small back, and Phil had honestly had to look away, like it was too much for his eyes to take in.

Phil sits in the little waiting room outside and takes advantage of the WiFi to admit defeat and complete the form for a three week extension on his assignment, and an extra two week leave of absence. He stops at the box asking for a reason, the drop down menu obviously not giving an option that suits his current circumstances.

Colin’s mother, two seats away, is zooming in on The Piano Lesson on her ipad. Phil doesn’t mean to stare, he really doesn’t, but the sight of it makes him stop, stumble on his application, accidentally selecting the option for _significant stress at home_.

“Oh!” says Colin’s mother because he, apparently, has leant right over the seats between them. “Hello. You’re Mr Howell’s partner, right? We met at the recital last year.”

“Yes” Phil says. “Yes, we did.”

(Colin had played Aerith’s Theme. Dan had cried.)

She follows his gaze over to the tablet. “You like art?”

Phil says “some” and then, as casually as he can muster, “that’s a Matisse, right?”

“Yes, it’s been in the news a lot, recently. It was missing for a while but now it’s been found again. The foundation that owns it are putting it on tour but, then, there’s been lots of those recently.”

Phil says “really?” wide eyed.

“Stolen pieces turning up again all over the place. It’s incredible” she stops, gestures to herself. “I work in a gallery, a small one. The bidding’s been pretty intense for some of them but we might be able to get this one. Hopefully.”

“Didn’t they arrest someone about that?” Phil nods at The Piano Lesson.

“Some French lady, a piano teacher, I think. She handed herself in, it was very odd.”

Inside the room Colin is playing Return to Zanarkand (which Phil can play, a little, with one finger, while Dan tries not to look like he’s causing the piano physical pain). In the breaks between chords he can hear Dan’s voice, low and encouraging.

“He’s so good with him,” says Colin’s mum. “Colin’s hated all of his other piano teachers but Mr Howell is so kind. He’s like a different child, really.”

Phil leaves the _significant stress at home_ option filled in, sighs, and sends the completed form to his tutor just as the door opens again, on Colin’s little voice saying “thanks Mr Howell!”

~*~

Melody is in a lot of photos from the party at the Tate. She shows Phil, excitedly, on her laptop - scrolling from image to image before he can really take it in. Dan isn’t in any of the professional ones, but he’s sitting next to her at dinner, in some photos of the tables. The sparkles from his jacket make him look like a human disco ball, which has the added benefit of making his features very difficult to make out.

Melody put a photo of her and Dan on the table in her hallway (it’s a selfie, Phil can tell from looking at it, from experience, that it’s probably the fifth or sixth attempt, and Dan has made sure it’s the perfect angle.) They both look happy, the reflective sequins catching in Melody’s perfectly curled hair.

He says “Dan, look” more than once. Dan isn’t paying attention because the Pomeranians are obviously more interesting.

Claude, sat neatly on Phil’s lap, yawns.

“So, which one next?” says Melody.

“Lady Agnew” Phil replies, absentmindedly petting Claude’s head. “The John Singer Sargent.”

Melody nods. “My father loved John Singer Sargent. That’s why the oldest dog’s named after him” she nods to the fattest Pomeranian, currently cradled against Dan’s chest.

“You named them all after painters?” Phil’s never asked about the other dogs, mainly because of his complete favoritism for Claude.

“Claude. Pablo. Henri. Leonardo. Pierre. And John Singer Sargent.”

“You full name him?” Phil feels sympathy for John Singer Sargent, the oldest and fattest Pomeranian. “Why not just John?”

“It’s a stately name” Dan says, from the floor. “For a stately dog.”

~*~

John Singer Sargent comes with them to get the painting, mostly because he seems to have attached himself to Dan.

Lady Agnew has a calming face, Phil thinks. Like she’s listening to you tell a story and she’s _really_ interested in what you have to say. Melody, on the way in, said “no, she looks like she’s doing that polite, yes I’m listening face, when actually she’s thinking about something else.” She’d looked at Dan, for the deciding vote, but Phil knows Dan’s thoughts on portraits, and so knows that he will have spent no time trying to work out a painting’s thought process.

“I hate doing portraits” Dan says again, just for confirmation. “She’s looking right at us.” He pushes his face into John Singer Sargent’s fur, rubs his nose against his ear. The dog looks up at him adoringly.

“Did he paint anything else?”

Dan says “who? John Singer Sargent? I think he only did portraits really. We had his Lady Macbeth here, for a bit. Mark hated it, her face was terrifying” he continues packing Lady Agnew into her case. “He had a huge drama in Paris because he painted some socialite in an off the shoulder dress.”

Phil says “scandalous.”

“He had to paint actual straps onto her dress but then it was too late” Dan runs his free hand over Lady Agnew’s frame, traces his fingertips down the grain of the wood. “There can’t be trackers, there’s just no way. I would be able to _feel_ them."

They fit Lady Agnew into a Fortnum and Mason hamper that Melody has in her first kitchen, the fancy one. “I’m having a party later” she says, proudly, as Phil lifts it, looking like he’s going to the world’s poshest picnic.

“And you didn’t invite us” Dan teases, gently, returning John Singer Sargent to the floor.

“Next time,” Melody says. “I promise.”

“You’re planning a lot of parties?” Phil says.

“Just to meet people. For my paintings. Someone told me once, that it would make me happy to see people enjoying them, and it turns out he was right.”

Phil says “oh.”

“I mean him,” Melody says to Dan. “He told me that, when he came here first.”

Dan, heaving the basket up into his arms, says “yeah, I got that” and gives Phil the full, unfiltered heart eyes look, the one that made them invent the shirt collar pull, the one that was too obvious for work. For life.

~*~

Dan says “do you want to do it?” without looking at Phil, looking out over the river instead, the waves of his fringe crashing and flowing over his forehead.

Phil says “do I want to do it?”

“ _I_ don’t want you to do it” Dan continues, pulling his sleeves over his hands. “But I can’t tell you what to do, can I. Do you want to do it?”

“I want to help.”

“Well, that’s a yes” Dan looks at him, consideringly, like he’s giving Phil the chance to deny this. Phil doesn’t. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m happy about it, not after last time.”

“I messed up last time. I know that. But I want to do it. If it’s the plan that makes the most sense, like PJ said. If it wasn’t me would you be saying that too?”

Dan says “I would. It makes the most sense. It’s the best option. If it wasn’t you then I’d be helping them arrange it right now” he gives Phil a despairing look. “Is that selfish of me?”

Phil, who would honestly, as much as he likes them all, hand PJ, Louise, Tyler _and_ Mark over to the police if it meant keeping Dan safe, says “no, it’s not selfish.”

“We said we’d work together, and I said that I wouldn’t keep you separate from this anymore. And if you want to do it, if you feel like you can do it, then I trust you. I trust that you can.”

Phil says, out of nowhere, the thought just suddenly exploding out of his mouth, “hey, I met Colin’s mum.”

Dan, slowly, says “okay.”

“She said are you Mr Howell’s _partner_. I think that’s my favourite phrase, for” he gestures between them “us. I never say it, I used to think it was too formal. But I think I like it now. Partner.”

Dan’s confused expression melts into fondness, he grabs at Phil’s hand, where it’s still flicking between the two of them, kisses his knuckles. “I get what you mean.”

Phil isn’t sure that he even gets what he means but he accepts the kiss anyway, taps his finger on Dan’s nose as he pulls his hand back. “I won’t do anything stupid. I won’t miss any exits. I won’t attract any guards.”

“I’m doing the next one” Dan says. “No matter how dangerous it is, I’m doing the next one. Promise that you won’t stop me.”

Phil says “but I -”

“Promise me. Double promise me. Anything. I’m doing the next one.”

“I promise. I double promise.”

~*~

By the time they get back Louise has decided on the Serpentine.

“The Serpentine?” Dan says. “We’ve never done the Serpentine.”

“Well, that’s the point” Tyler shrugs. “They never have anything worth stealing. Just all those weird sculptures.”

Louise says “I’m thinking, with the trackers. It’s not going to be instant, not in frames that thick, there’ll be a delay.”

“Well, of course,” Mark says.

“Which is why I picked the Serpentine. It has huge outdoor installations that change every so often, called the pavilion. Right now it looks like this” she holds up her phone, to a colourful structure that looks like a burrow, tunnels leading to a centrepiece and then out. “This is where you leave Lady Agnew."

Phil says “ _outside?_.”

“The delay will make him think you’re in the gallery but you won’t be. You both go in the pavilion, Mark leaves the painting, Phil can do lookout duties. Come out one of the top tunnels and you’re right at the top of Kensington Gardens, by the bridge” she looks at Dan, after saying Phil’s name. Dan gives the tiniest of nods. “You have to leave now, like in the next five minutes, to get time to walk around the gallery properly.”

Phil says “we can’t leave her outside. That seems a bit -”

“And what are we doing?” Dan says. “While this is going on?”

“It’s a Friday,” PJ says. “You play piano on a Friday.”

Dan looks between PJ and Louise. “You can’t expect -”

“It’s a perfect alibi, if Jack tries anything. Me and Louise will come, be overly friendly and obvious with everyone, while keeping check on Mark and Phil. Tyler can meet them on the bridge.”

Dan wants to protest, Phil can tell by the way he’s stood up straight, chewing on his bottom lip. He looks at Phil, tilts his head to the side, raises an eyebrow as if to say _are you okay with this? Do you want to do this?_

Phil nods.

Dan says “fine, okay. Fine.”

~*~

He says goodbye to Dan in their bedroom. Dan’s already changed in his shirt and tie, for the bar later, and he can’t stop touching his hands to Phil’s face, his shoulders, scattering across his chest to bunch in the fabric of his sweater. He opens his mouth to say something.

Phil says “don’t” in a hoarse voice that sounds like he’s in the middle of crying (he’s not, though it’s taking a whole load of effort to avoid), both of his hands at Dan’s shirt collar.

Dan says “come back to me” simply, not a request.

~*~

The Serpentine looks like a mix between a stately home and one of his lecture halls in York (except his lecture halls never had a huge sculpture of a chess set outside). He says as much to Mark, who is nervously scuffing his shoes along the gravel, staring at the layout of the chess pieces (the king is pinned into one corner, almost at checkmate).

Mark has been nervously fidgeting and scuffing his shoes on things since they left the flat. Phil knows that Dan had given him a _if anything happens to Phil, anything at all_ talk in the hall. Phil hadn’t been supposed to hear it but he’d delayed on the stairs (out of nerves, out of a sudden rush of why am I pretending like I can do this?) and Dan said “I mean it Mark, anything at all. You have no idea”and Mark had said “I have some idea”.

~*~

Phil stuffs his hands into the pocket of his coat and finds a folded up piece of paper. On closer inspection it’s an envelope, his name written on the front, clear gaps between the letters like the writer really wanted it to be readable. He sighs, audibly, like this tyre with a spring through it that he’s looking at is causing him to have too many feelings. A woman next to him nods, like she completely understands.

Underneath Dan has written _only open this if_ leaving the sentence unfinished. If what?

Phil remembers the last section, regardless, _I wanted to be a good person, you made me want to be one, if anyone could have rescued me it would have been you_.

(Jack, the end of a phone call, _I only wanted to be a good person, Phil, that’s all. How can I be, with this?_ )

Should he have written a letter for Dan? He’s not sure; Dan has actual things to arrange, actual sums of money that Phil knows are burrowed away in more than one bank account.

(“I don’t want the letter” Phil had said, pulling at Dan’s shirt collar. “I know you’re going to try and sneak it to me anyway, but I don’t want it."

“It’s _just in case_ ” Dan said, air of desperation in the forced casualness of his tone. “It’s just so I know you’d be okay. If.”

“But I don’t have anything for you. To write you a letter back. I don’t have anything to arrange for you, or to give you, besides a huge collection of DVDs and anime and dead plants. It’s just me, really. That’s all. And you’ve already got me.”

Dan said “exactly. And no amount of money, or flats, or _things_ would ever compete with that.”)

Next to the tyre there’s a long piece of white fabric, hung from the ceiling, with a large black spot in the centre. Phil shifts Lady Agnew (or Gertrude, as Mark keeps calling her, to give her actual name) in her basket and stares at it.

He’s meant to take his time, so that whatever tracker Jack apparently has on Gertrude will lead him into the gallery, not the pavilion, but it’s pretty difficult when he can literally only stare at each piece for two seconds before his mind starts wandering.

(“Nothing competes with you” Dan continued. “Nothing. What more could I want from you?”

“What more could I want from _you_?” Phil pointed out. “I don’t want money. I don’t want this flat, I couldn’t stay here without you anyway. You keep giving me this letter but I’m never going to read it.”

“I wrote it for you”

“Then I’ll read it when all of this is over.”)

Phil joins Mark, who is looking at a tiny pink chair. It may or may not be one of the exhibits. An equally tiny child comes and sits on it, smiles up at both of them.

Mark smiles back, pokes his tongue out (which she instantly returns), and says “how long did we have to spend in here?”

“Until closing” Phil replies. “Which is in fifteen minutes.”

Mark makes a despairing noise, says “fine, I’m going to over to look at -” he points to a grey block of cement with three squares cut out of it. “That. I’m going to look at that.”

Maybe he could read one more paragraph of it. He’s read two already, the start and the end. Maybe he could just pick one out of the middle.

~*~

_Just keep a check on the kids for me, especially Colin. Go to the recitals or whatever. They might end up with a mean teacher, like I had, so just keep checking they’re okay. You can keep the piano. Or would you prefer not to? I don’t know if it would be too much. It would be like me keeping all of your houseplants. I don’t know. You can start dating again, I don’t mind if you start dating again, and don’t say that you won’t, someone like you deserves to be loved, to have someone with you. I can’t think of you on your own._

Phil regrets his decision instantly, almost drops Lady Agnew/Gertrude in his haste to get all four pages of the letter back in the envelope.

~*~

He meets Mark, as arranged, on the opposite side of Kensington Gardens, looking down at the gallery from the Serpentine Bridge. Phil passes the painting over to Mark, who holds it under one arm. Early dusk is setting in, street lights starting to turn on as the lights of the gallery start to turn off.

“What do you think he’s going to do?” Phil asks. “If he thinks we’re in there?”

“For one, he _will_ think we’re in there” Mark replies. “To get trackers into the frame like that, they’ll have a delay, like Louise said. At least a two hour one. He’ll still be picking up the info from us wandering around looking at tiny chairs.”

“And for two?”

“He won’t think it’s us. Definitely not as a combination, anyway. That’s the point. And for _three_ , I don’t think he’ll deal with it himself. Not again. I think he’ll call the police, or the security here, or something.”

They start walking down the bridge, Phil tries so hard not to look suspicious that he ends up doing an odd marching sort of walk that gains strange looks from a couple walking in the opposite direction. Mark says “hey, c’mon” and links his free arm into Phil’s wildly failing one, pulling Phil into his side. The couple smile at them both.

Phil says “what if he’s there?”

“Then that’s for me to deal with.”

The pavilion is a huge metal structure, wrapped with different colours, lit up from the inside; blue going into peach turning into pink, each area is a different size, all meeting at the silver lit centrepoint where, apparently, there is a cafe and seating area. There looks to be, Mark says, about fifteen entry and exit points, all in different places, all different shapes and sizes.

Phil isn’t sure if it’s ugly or beautiful, or if it’s only beautiful because it’s lit up. He says “is this art? Really?” to Mark as they’re walking a lap around the place.

Mark says “well, anything can be art. You saw the stuff inside. It’s all about perception, what it means to people. I mean, this could mean anything” he throws his free arm, the one not carrying Lady Agnew, to the tunnels.

“It looks like it means a huge mess of stuff that I would get lost in,” Phil replies. He’s glad that Dan hadn’t seen them in real life, otherwise there is no possible way that he would have agreed to let Phil anywhere in the immediate vicinity. He’d get lost in there on a casual Sunday trip out, let alone breaking in to dump a stolen painting at 8pm on a Friday.

Mark says “hey, it’s gonna be fine. You can literally come out of any side and be back here, in the gardens. And you know the way. Just don’t go back to the gallery. It’s gonna be okay.”

They go in through the yellow section, the entrance of which is about three feet off the ground. Phil has to pull himself up first, then turn back for Lady Agnew, which Mark is holding aloft. Phil suddenly thinks that this isn’t the right way around. He says “Mark, this isn’t the plan.”

Mark says “plans can change. It’s safer for you, this way.”

Which is about the same time that they hear the sirens.

Mark, still with Lady Agnew over his head, says “I told you so.”

Phil hisses “ _Mark_.”

Mark hoists the painting up to Phil and says “as far into the centre as you can, remember?” making no attempt to climb up himself.

“This isn’t the plan” Phil says. There are still sirens, but hey this is London, they could be coming from anywhere, going anywhere, right?

They’re not though. They’re coming closer. He knows and Mark knows.

He repeats “this isn’t the plan. Mark, this isn’t the plan. You know it’s not, you _know_ -”

“I know _him_ ” Mark replies. “I know how he works. Get as far into the centre as you can. I’m going to make some noise around the gallery, keep them there, and then I’ll come and meet you, okay? Where we said.”

There are voices now, with the sirens. Phil says “fine, okay. Just be -”

He flicks his eyes down, to the painting, on _be_ , and in the second that he looks back up Mark is gone.

Phil says “- careful.”

~*~

Dan hates yellow, and would especially hate this shade of yellow - a syrupy, sort of chemically altered sunshine that Phil thinks he’s drowning in, completely surrounded with the noise from outside muffled. He keeps Lady Agnew tight against his chest, like an anchor, and tries not to slip on the odd plastic casing of the floor.

(“The centre is covered” PJ said. “You know, in case it rains. Which it probably will. We don’t want her to get damaged or anything.”)

Phil wonders why they’re all calling Lady Agnew _her_. Maybe that’s why Dan hates portraits so much. Why Mark had hated Lady Macbeth. Why the vast majority of paintings on everyone’s lists are landscapes, or portraits where the subject is looking away, just out of frame. Lady Agnew looks directly at the person looking at her, either listening or slightly bored, completely serene with whatever’s going on.

The yellow, thankfully, turns into peach; still with a slightly acidic vibe to it, but Phil can deal with that. It feels calmer, his steps are more assured, he finally starts to pick up some speed.

From outside, as much as he can make out, the sirens are definitely _in_ the gardens now. He knows that they can’t see into the pavilion but walks faster anyway.

~*~

The silver centre area is obviously set up for a conference, five rows of twenty identical white chairs all facing one, slightly bigger, white chair. Or, based on what he saw in the actual gallery, it could be a piece of art. Who knows.

He removes Lady Agnew from her basket (wrapped, by Louise, in ten layers of brown paper) and puts her safely under one of the chairs, just for some extra protection from any rain. He says “bye Gertrude” just because he feels like he should.

His options for the way out are blue and green.

He picks blue, obviously, a tunnel of beautiful aqua almost the exact shade of the waves in The Sea at Saintes-Maries, that opens out onto a well-lit footpath in clear eyeline of the gallery, and however many police officers are there.

He turns, walks back to the seating area, then up through green.

Someone says “but he said there was someone in the gallery” so close that Phil comes to a complete stop, a rabbit in the headlights. “But there’s nothing. The doors are all locked and there’s no open windows”

Phil looks around, up and down the tunnel, nothing. He leans forward, as hesitantly as he can manage, and presses his ear to the luminous green.

“Hoax call?” the person says, right next to him.

Phil jumps back. Maybe he can’t leave through green after all.

“What about the pavilion?”

Phil thinks _no, no, not the pavilion_

Another voice, a voice he recognises, says “no, it has to be the gallery. Why would the caller say that otherwise?” sounding flat, like someone trying to repress their natural accent and failing.

“Just an anonymous caller though. Could easily just be someone trying to funny, with all the art stuff going on at the moment.”

“No, we should keep looking.”

There’s a noise, too far away and obscured for Phil to tell exactly what it is, but it startles the two people talking near the pavilion. It’s obviously coming from the gallery. Phil presses his ear closer, still closer, hears the second voice, the fake accent voice, say “that came from -” and then trail off as they walk away.

Phil takes the opportunity to sprint through the green, shoes squeaking, has to kneel right down to get through the exit, which is shaped like a mouse hole and probably meant for children, not six foot plus adult men, but he makes it anyway, rolling into an undignified sprawl on the unlit area of the footpath, pulling the basket after him.

He thinks, or takes a second to think, as he clambers up and away - you did it. Phil. You actually did it. Can almost hear a tiny fanfare and some applause.

~*~

Mark is not at the meeting spot, but Phil _knew_ he wouldn’t be. There’s no sign of him. He stops, on the walkway up to the bridge. Mark wouldn’t have walked all the way up without him, there’s no way.

He remembers the noise from the gallery. Mark wouldn’t have left without him so he is absolutely not leaving without Mark. He turns and walks back, swinging the basket at his side, managing the same nonchalant sort of walk that he’d tried for, and failed at, earlier.

There are three police cars at the gallery but only one police officer outside. Phil can see multiple torch lights inside the gallery, flickering out through the windows, but he only looks briefly because the officer outside has one firm hand on Mark. _Mark_. 

Phil says “oh” because, by some stroke of luck or miracle, this is the first police officer he’s encountered, this whole time, and in some crazy post-successful-job-high marches straight up to him.

He says “there you are!” joyfully, like he notices nothing amiss at all.

The officer looks at him, confused. “Sir?”

Phil reaches out, links his arm with Mark’s and pulls Mark into his side. “I’ve been looking for you. How did you end up down here?”

Mark gives him a startled look.

“You know each other?” the officer says, looking between them both. Mark instantly leans further into Phil.

“Well, yes. We’re meant to be meeting at the bridge but he doesn’t know the area very well, must have got lost” close enough to the truth that he’s not actually lying to the police. Not that he hasn’t done that before, but still. He leans in, conspiratorially, “his sense of direction’s terrible. He always takes the wrong path in”

The officer notices the basket. “You’re having a picnic?”

Phil nods. “Moonlit picnics are the best” maybe they are. He should tell Dan. He tries to act like the basket isn’t empty, stops swinging it in his hand so much.

Mark says “I got lost” in his loudest, most American voice. “Then I heard all this commotion.”

Phil raises his eyebrows at _commotion_ and makes his eyes wide. “Has something happened?”

“Did you see anyone, around the gallery?”

Mark and Phil shake their heads in unison.

“Do you mind if I just search you? Just quickly?” the police officer’s tone is apologetic and Phil instantly knows that it’s okay, that they’ve done it.

Mark’s hands, when he holds his arms out to be pat down, are shaking. Phil resists the urge to try and sooth him, just stares until Mark gets the hint and closes his fingers into fists.

Someone from far away but walking closer shouts “do you need any help?” in much the same way that he’d yelled _no, all clear here_ at the National, days ago.

Phil starts, tries to warn Mark without being obvious, but Mark isn’t looking at him, he’s trying really hard to keep smiling at the police officer, who is making polite conversation about London and the sights that Mark should see.

Jack sees Phil first, but Phil has no time to judge his reaction because Jack instantly sees Mark.

The policeman says “Sean” then, to Mark, “this is Sean, he’s head of security at the National, came over to help on this. You should visit the National, if you haven’t already”

Jack and Mark stare at each other until Mark says “hi Sean. Nice to meet you.”

Jack seemingly can’t bring himself to say hi back, his eyes are the size of dinner plates. He says “what’s this?” and his voice is a crackling mess.

“Oh, just a couple who lost each other in the gardens. They didn’t see anything” he begins patting at Phil’s coat, unzips it. “And there’s nothing on them.”

“Lost in the gardens?”

“Yup” the officer gestures to Mark. “He’s never been to London before.”

Phil has no idea how he’s not picking up on the tension between Jack and Mark, which is as thick and solid as being back in one of the tunnels (the green one, probably), how he can’t notice that Jack is only looking at Mark. He finishes and smiles at Phil. “Thanks mate. And you, too. You’re fine to go. You might need to find somewhere else for your picnic though.”

Phil gives his sunniest smile, even though he thinks he might throw up. “Thank you! And we will.”

“I can walk them out” Jack says, his fake accent faltering all over the place. “If they don’t know the -”

“ _I_ do” Phil says, firmly. He links his arm back through Mark’s and pulls him from where he’s apparently frozen in place. “Come on babe” (he has no idea where babe came from. He’s never called anyone babe in his life.)

He manages to propel Mark, through momentum alone, a few yards along the footpath before Jack is next to them, on Phil’ side. Phil keeps pulling Mark along.

He’s surprised when Jack says “Phil” instead of the name that he was expecting.

Mark says “you called the police” with a tiny uplift at the end of his voice, like he’s hoping that isn’t true.

“I didn’t know it was going to be you,” Jack replies.

“Of course it’s me. This is all about me.”

Jack, with some desperation, says “Mark, if we could just -” and attempts to grab Phil’s jacket, to pull them to a stop. “If I could just -”

Mark says “I have a girlfriend” which is not how Phil would have chosen to break that news, in all honesty. He makes a shocked, sort of disappointed, noise in Mark’s direction.

Jack’s mouth is open as though, if he could, he would be making a similar sort of sound. After several false starts he manages to say “the girl from LA?”

They’re almost at the bridge, Phil can see the pastel whip of Tyler’s hair, stooped over his phone. He keeps Mark walking, hand clutching the crook of his arm so hard that it must surely be hurting him (or it _would_ be if Mark wasn’t solid muscle).

Jack, keeping stride with them, says “well, you keep surprising me” to Phil with a genuinely impressed sounding air.

Phil says “I told you that I wouldn’t -”

“And _I_ told _you_. I won’t be taken by surprise next time. This was a nasty trick to try and play.”

Mark says “look, about what happened -”

“Yeah. About what happened” Jack looks at Phil. “You understand me a little better now?”

Phil, at a loss, almost says _yes. Yes I do._

Mark says “I don’t -”

“These people don’t care, Phil, they’ll leave. I got left and no one ever checked up on me, to see if I was okay, no one ever -”

“I was trying to help you,” Mark exclaims, tries to stop but Phil keeps them walking.

Jack, to Phil, says “I gave you the chance to get out, to leave, but here you still are.”

“I’ll never leave him.”

“That’s noble. If only I’d had a you in my life before.”

Someone from the gallery shouts “Sean?”, the name travels along the air until it turns into a whisper.

Jack says “I mean it. On the next one I won’t be taken by surprise, not like this. Whoever’s doing the next one, that’s it. I won’t be distracted. I’m not being emotional about this any more.”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything. Because _Dan_ is doing the next one. Phil had promised him, he’d double promised.

“Bringing him was cruel. But I’m sure you know that.”

Mark says “Jack, I -”

Jack, with some effort, manages to turn away without looking at Mark, and makes his stumbling way back down the hill to the pavilion. Phil tries not to watch him leave, tries to keep up his steps. Mark sighs, raises a hand to his face.

Phil says, softly, “what were you going to do?”

Mark says “what do you mean?” but he’s a terrible liar.

Phil, usually, would be passive enough to take heed and not push further, but he’s not feeling that passive, of late. “Were you going to give yourself up?”

Mark says “don’t tell the others.”

“That’s a really stupid thing to do, Mark.”

“Says _you_ ” Mark replies. Then, instantly, “sorry. I didn’t mean -”

“That’s okay” Phil looks at his feet and decides that, now he’s started he may as well finish. “That was the wrong way to do it. To tell him about your girlfriend.”

“Anything I ever do with him is the wrong way” Mark replies. “Anything I ever _did_ was the wrong way.”

Tyler, finally seeing them, raises his arm, like they would somehow fail to spot him. He says “oh my gosh, I’m so glad you’re both okay” then, seeing Mark, “wait, are you okay?”

Phil says “we’re okay” because, all things considered, he’s a better liar than Mark is.

~*~

They can hear the piano from a street away. Mark is walking slowly, barely lifting his feet off the ground, Phil is torn between wanting to run ahead and trying to keep in step with the sad swipe-swipe of Mark’s sneakers, scuffing across the pavement. Tyler is giving them both concerned looks.

He says “it’s okay Mark” when it’s not really.

Mark, knowing this, gives him a weak smile. It doesn’t make his eyes crinkle, meaning that it’s a Mark smile that Phil has never seen before.

“It’s one down. We did it. Both of us.”

“ _You_ technically did it” Mark corrects. “Not me. I was hopeless. Don’t try and tell anyone that _we_ did it. Take some credit.”

The piano music coming out of The Reprise doesn’t sound like Dan. It’s flat and hesitant, not how Dan plays piano at all. Dan is lyrical and flowing, startled out of the music at the end, like he’s forgotten he even had an audience (even if he can never take praise, will say _it’s four chords and I got three of them wrong, and I’m standing up. That’s an insult to people who can actually play the piano_ ).

Mark wrinkles his nose. “This is him?”

When Phil walks in he instantly meets Dan’s eyes because Dan, of course, is playing looking directly at the door. He maybe misses a key but the playing is so bad anyway that Phil can’t tell.

Phil waves, a small hesitant raise of his hand that says _here I am_ and _I’m okay_. The melody finally gets into place.

“A drink” Mark says. “I need a drink.”

PJ and Louise are already at the bar, both in loud conversation with someone, making themselves noticeable. Louise instantly notices him and turns, flicking her hair over her shoulder, nudging PJ, but Phil ignores them all and makes unsteady progress through the tables; bumping his knees and elbows against chairs, tripping over a handbag, to reach the piano. And Dan.

Dan visibly exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for the entire time that Phil’s been away, and starts the theme tune to Attack on Titan. Phil, standing next to him, leans down and presses the same key over and over, horribly out of rhythm but loud and distracting enough that he can say “hello” into Dan’s ear.

Dan says “hello” softly, not to be picked up by his microphone. “There you are.”

“Here I am” Phil agrees, attempts to add another tune into the mix. It doesn’t work. “I did it.”

There’s a pause, while Dan obviously tries to think what to say. Eventually he manages “I knew you could.”

Phil doesn’t end with a usual keyboard smash, just presses A sharp, a clear little note that rings for a few seconds after Dan has (tunefully) finished the actual music.

Dan says “I’m so glad you’re back” like it hasn’t been just two hours, like Phil hasn’t been streets away, reaches up and pulls Phil down to him, little finger hooked around his shirt collar, presses his lips to the corner of Phil’s mouth.

Phil smiles into it, touches his hand to Dan’s cheek, and steps away.

Dan, clearing his throat, says “my boyfriend, ladies and gentleman.”

Phil bows, low and sweeping (like the end of a musical number when he should be wearing a top hat and tailcoat), accepts the spattering of very generous applause.

“Sorry, I meant my partner, ladies and gentleman,” Dan corrects, the last word sounding far away as he’s in the middle of standing up. He still, after months, hasn’t really got into the habit of using his microphone successfully.

At the bar Phil says “we did it” to PJ and Louise, somewhat surprised by how proud his voice sounds, how happy he is when PJ leans over and squeezes his shoulder, when Louise smiles at him.

Mark, two thirds into a glass of bourbon, says “he did it. I told him not to say we. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

PJ, eyes on Mark, says, “did anything happen?” and then “no, tell us tomorrow. Let’s just be normals for a bit longer.”

Dan, appearing at his side, presses his face into Phil’s hair and says “not us. Let’s go home.”

Phil says “oh, I thought -”

Dan says “please. Let me take you home” and his hands, one still covered in Disney plasters, are trembling. Ever so slightly.

Phil grabs one of his hands, the bruised one, and pulls it up to his heart. “Okay. Let’s go home.”

~*~

Phil says, later, afterwards, when they’re facing each other, his hand across Dan’s face, fingers catching his ear, “I should start dating again?”

Dan says “you’re giving me very mixed messages about whether or not you actually want to read that letter.”

“I couldn’t” Phil says. “I wouldn’t.”

“If I get caught then there’s a whole list of things that can be traced to me,” Dan says, slowly. “I’d be away for a long time. Like, a really long time.”

Phil repeats “I couldn’t.”

“You’d deserve to be with someone who loves you.”

“ _You_ love me. I love you. I’d wait. I’d wait forever.”

Dan rolls onto his back, says “there’s plenty of people who would want to date you”, to the ceiling (Connor, presumably, still plays on his mind).

Phil rolls with him, keeps going until he’s right on top of him, chest to chest. “But, they wouldn’t be _you_. That’s the point. Are you going to date other people if I get caught?”

Dan winces. “Don’t say that. It’s too soon.”

“ _Are_ you?”

“No. I wouldn’t and I couldn’t.”

“Well, that’s just hypocritical, isn’t it,” Phil says.

~*~

Still later, when Dan is halfway to sleep, Phil says “and I wouldn’t get rid of the piano. I never would.”

Dan gives no response, but the arm around his waist tightens, just a little.

Phil tries hard to swallow down the sense of foreboding in his heart.

_I’m doing the next one, no matter how dangerous it is, I’m doing the next one. Promise that you won’t stop me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (to give the full title) was sold to the Scottish National Gallery by the real Lady Gertrude Agnew. She still lives there, but frequently goes “on tour” throughout the UK and USA. I took some liberties with the size of the painting, as it’s actually  huge and in a fricking massive baroque frame (and is so heavy that it hangs from two chains). 
> 
> \- The other John Singer Sargent painting mentioned is real, as is the scandal around it - the painting is called Portrait of Madame X (you can see it, with added dress straps, [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Madame_X), and read a bit more about the whole thing).
> 
> \- The Serpentine Galleries are a pair of, very cool, galleries in Kensington Gardens, which specialise in sculptures and modern art. Their pavilion has a lot of awesome installations - the light up tunnels mentioned here were there in 2015 but sadly no longer. You can see how they looked in irl [here](http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/sites/default/files/styles/overlay_full_custom_user_large_1x/public/images/serpentine_2015_03.jpg?itok=AQqq_0mN&timestamp=1434965710) (I have exaggerated their size slightly, for story purposes, and made it less see-through! :D) 
> 
> \- (and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKC6LTE7CxQ) is Aerith’s Theme, for video game piano goodness)
> 
> And in other news about amazing pieces of art, the wonderful [silentorator](http://silentorator.tumblr.com) has PAINTED LLAMA IN MEADOW (it exists! For real!) - please go and look upon its majestic beauty [here](https://leblonde.tumblr.com/post/156113167600/silentorator-llama-in-meadow-is-both-the). It is everything I imagined it to be and yet somehow more. 
> 
> (I’m on tumblr at [leblonde](https://leblonde.tumblr.com). Come say hi!)


	10. 8. lavender mist - jackson pollock

(Outside the Reprise, the end of the last time and the start of the first time. Or, Phil had wanted it to be the end of the last time and the start of something else, something new. He had stopped and held out his hand to Dan, who was completely and utterly _Dan_ , and said:

“Hi I’m Phil. I’m a recently ex-security guard who stopped an art heist and found a Van Gogh. You probably saw it on the news. I’m just about to start an internship. I eat too much sugar and I can’t keep houseplants alive.”

Dan had made a noise, a whisper between a sob and a laugh, said _seriously_ , and then “I’m Dan. I dropped out of Law and did other stuff for a bit. But I don’t anymore. Now I play the piano. I, uh, wear a lot of black and I’m really awkward most of the time.”

He stared at Phil like he wasn’t sure Phil was real, like he could make him so just by looking at him, somehow wishing him into existence. Phil had thought that look would maybe wear off after a while but it didn’t. It hadn’t. It _hasn’t_.

“It’s nice to meet you Dan” Phil replied. “For the first time ever.” He had kept his voice light because this was a _start_ , this was _new_. Dan was not his past, anymore than Phil was.

Dan stayed staring at him, his fingers quivering where they were clasped around Phil’s hand.

They were not their collective pasts. They were not stolen Van Goghs, or impossibly blue seas painted to catch the sun reflection, or fake names, or emergency codes on locked basement doors. Phil didn’t want to be any of those things, he wanted a new backstory.

Phil said “let’s never talk about that other stuff you used to do ever again” like it could possibly be that easy, that not talking about it would mean that it would cease to exist, like their history could be changed in any way whatsoever.)

~*~

Phil knows that the worst thing about it, really, is that he made the promise, the double promise without fully understanding. Which is ridiculous now, because he can’t hide behind the mist of not fully understanding anymore, he understands. Better than most. And yet he’d still promised.

And there’s no possible way he can go back on it. Not after Dan, in a hotel room in Paris, astonished, saying _you lied, more than once_ because Phil  had lied, had made promises that he’d never intended to keep, hadn’t waited when Dan, oceans away, had told him to.

Dan, not oceans away but exactly where he always should be, safe against Phil’s chest, says (sleepily) “ _did_ anything happen? Yesterday?”

“I think” Phil says. “That it was the wrong thing to do. To take Mark.”

Dan opens in his eyes a fraction. “It was to throw Jack off.”

“It was a bit cruel. Thinking about it now. With everything.”

(Jack’s eyes, the size of dinner plates, as blue as any seascape in any painting Phil has seen, speaking to Phil but not looking at him because, of course, he was looking at Mark _whoever’s doing the next one, that’s it. I won’t be distracted. I’m not being emotional about this any more_ )

Dan opens his eyes fully and says “that doesn’t exactly answer the question of if anything happened”, now completely awake. “Or maybe it does.”

“When we were talking about this, at my parents’ house, when we still thought this was all about Felix, about the paintings. I said we were trying to guess the thought process of a stranger.”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“But he’s not a stranger. Not to all of you. Or he shouldn’t be.”

“You’re not making sense” Dan sits up, props himself on his elbows. “Which again answers my question. Was he there? Is that where this is coming from?”

“He was there. Of course he was there.” Phil doesn’t sit up. Dan, from his elevated position, stays peering down at him. “I think if someone just _spoke_ to him, if -” Dan frowns. “No one ever spoke to him.”

Dan, carefully, like he’s slowly selecting each word, says “I know that he’s been treated badly, I _get_ that, but it’s too late, Phil. You can’t solve everything by sitting down and having tea, he’s not Melody. He’s not Madame Darbonne.”

“Madame Darbonne _handed herself in_. Colin’s mother told me.”

“That’s not your fault. She did that herself, it was what she wanted to do, she was one of Felix’s biggest clients. She must have -”

Phil interrupts, says “you knew about that” with no hint of questioning.

Dan ducks his head.

“And you didn’t say.”

“I didn’t want you to be upset.” Dan reaches out and puts his hand, flat, on Phil’s chest, right over his heart. “You can’t save everyone, you just _can’t_ , and, honestly, I love you for thinking you can, I really do, but people have to want to be saved in the first place.”

“What if Jack does?”

“If he does then he’s going a really strange way about it.”

“I think he does” Phil says. “Some of the things he’s said. I think he does.”

Dan gives him a long, considering look. “Maybe he does. Still doesn’t change what he’s doing right now. If the timing had been wrong then you and Mark could have been caught. And then what?”

Phil hesitates, seconds away from telling Dan about Mark, passively stood with a police officer’s hand on his shoulder, not even attempting to save himself. Mark, his kind face a constellation of frown lines, saying _don’t tell the others_.

“He might want to be saved but I don’t think he’s that into saving us,” Dan says, after giving a pause for Phil to reply, a silence that he never filled.

“Maybe he thinks he can’t do one thing without the other,” Phil says, a sleep fogged sentence that only vaguely makes sense.

Dan, next to him, above him, says “maybe.”

Dan, from yesterday, removing dead begonia petals from Phil’s fringe, saying _I meant what I said before. Nothing is going to take me away from you._

They should both probably stop making promises without fully understanding.

~*~

Tyler is waiting in the kitchen, expectantly. He says “good morning!” and gives Phil a cheery salute (but Tyler does everything in a cheery manner). “How are we doing today?”

“How are _we_ doing?”

“Yes, like as a collective. Because three of us had to physically carry Mark back from the bar last night, while two of us left early” Tyler shrugs. “What happened? On the job? It seemed like it went pretty smoothly, but Mark was all over the place.”

“I don’t know if it’s for me to say.”

“He said Jack was there.”

“He told you that?” Phil tries not to make it sound like a big deal, moves around Tyler to get to the tea bags.

Tyler, stepping directly back into his way, says “he was pretty drunk, so I’m not sure how intentional it was” and takes charge of collecting tea bags himself.

Phil steps back and sighs. “He was there. I don’t think, I mean I _know_ the plan made sense but I’m not sure if it was an entirely….. I don’t think it was a nice thing to do."

Tyler looks incredulous (the type of expression where he’s seconds away from slapping his hand to his cheek in shock). “Phil. Seriously. We’re returning art that we stole. _Stole_. None of our plans are nice, none of them have ever been nice.”

“I _know_ that,” Phil says. “Of course, I know that.”

Tyler says “well, of course _you_ know that,” and off Phil’s expression adds “fuck, I made this awkward. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You said it because it’s _true_. You don’t have to wrap everything you say to me in cotton wool, you don’t have to _protect_ me.”

“But you’re the kind of person that deserves protecting. Which is no comment on how well you did last night, or any of the other times, but -”

“Last night’s the only one I did truly by myself,” Phil replies sourly. For some reason, the knowledge of that still upsets him, the tiny flame of pride that he hadn’t really expressed to anyone abruptly snuffed out.

“Then you did even better.” Tyler starts making the tea, whistles cheerfully to himself while he does so. “That’s a weird gallery. Did you see the tyre? What’s that even supposed to _mean_?”

Phil asks “did they find Lady Agnew yet?”

Tyler says “nope. Exhibit’s closed on a weekend, it’ll be next week and even then they might not for a while. I mean, they still haven’t found Boreas, wherever you put it, and New York Movie will be a while. And Modern Rome, in that closed room.”

Phil thinks Modern Rome is probably no longer in that closed room, is more likely to be in the head of security’s office, right beside it. And why? Why would Jack be keeping that at the end of the list, exactly as he’d wanted it to be, when the _big finale_ was already ruined. Or, was it.

Tyler says “how are _you_ doing?”

“Me?”

“You. That’s how I should have worded that question in the first place. I should have asked you that yesterday but we ended up talking about Greek mythology instead.”

“It wasn’t completely about Greek mythology.”

“Well, no. It was a big fat metaphor, but that’s fine. I can do metaphors.” Tyler tilts his head to one side. “Which is lucky with you and Dan, and all of your -”

“I promised something I wish I hadn’t promised.”

“Okay. We’ve all done that, at some point.” Tyler starts pouring, using the oddest assortment of their mugs (Phil wonders, not for the first time, how they have so many mugs for just two people.) “Can you take it back?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve broken a lot of promises. Recently. And I double promised, so -”

“Wow” Tyler says, gently. “Those are legally binding.”

Phil tries to say something back, he really does, but instead he gasps, a sharp intake of air that’s probably a prelude to a sob. Tyler looks at him, startled.

Phil says “where is Mark?” and grabs at the first mug that Tyler poured (the Hello Kitty one that Dan always requests, even if you have to drink out of a hole in Hello Kitty’s head and basically splash tea over your chin). “He’s not here, is he? I can’t hear him.”

“He’s where he wanted to be.” Tyler says, his face and voice serious. It looks so odd, on Tyler, that Phil takes a step away. “But, stay here. You should stay here. I’ll make you whatever you want, I didn’t mean, I shouldn’t have said. I should have realised.”

Phil blindly starts walking backwards. “But you were right.”

“They’re not _legally binding_ , that was a stupid thing to say” Tyler doesn’t step towards him, stays still, teapot in hand. “Is it a promise to Dan? Because, just tell him. Whatever it is”

Phil, already halfway out of the kitchen, into the living room, shakes his head, even though Tyler can no longer see him.

~*~

Dan smiles at the mug, which he both loves and hates, and frowns at the colour of the tea, which is not to his preference (and so proves that Phil didn’t make it. Phil always gets the tea to the exact shade that Dan likes). He says “Tyler helped? Is anyone else up?”

He tries to take a sip and promptly spills a large drop onto one of the white squares of their duvet.

Phil says “no. Just Tyler. I’m going to go and find Mark.”

Dan frowns. “He’s not here?”

“He asked them to take him somewhere, I probably know where.”

Dan shifts a little, obviously making room for Phil to get back into bed, Phil honestly takes a half step, would like nothing more than to curl up beside Dan, to arrange pillows and blanket like a fort and not get up for at least the next two days. He touches his hand to Dan’s hair, pulls lightly at the curl in the middle of his forehead.

“You think he’s okay? After last night?” Dan asks. “I should come with you.”

He looks, honestly, so soft, so warm and so _safe_ that Phil says “no, stay here” in a way that, really, means _never leave here_ (which of course becomes _never leave me_ ). “He was upset. I should speak to him.”

Dan says “okay, sure”, scattering more tea drops over the duvet. “We can get started on planning because, you know, I’m doing the next one” he flicks his eyes to Phil’s, like he’s daring Phil to say that he takes it back, that he had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time.

Phil wishes, in all honesty, that he had.

~*~

Mark is, of course, in the flat downstairs; Missed Connections sprawled out on the coffee table again, the horrible scratchy blanket from the back of their sofa across his lap, tangled between his legs. He looks completely unsurprised to see Phil.

Phil says “did you _sleep_ here? You left the door unlocked.” He holds out a mug of tea, stolen from Tyler on his way through the kitchen.

Mark says “uh huh” in reply and then, taking the tea from Phil, “how did he sleep here? How did anyone sleep here? It’s the loneliest -”

Phil takes small cautious steps, sits very slowly beside him. “Are you okay?”

“Not really.” Mark sighs. “Not at all.”

“You were going to hand yourself in, weren’t you? Last night?”

“This is literally only happening because of me.” Mark slides one Missed Connection out of the pile, leaves it out on its own. “Should I talk to him? Do you think?”

“I don’t know if it would do any good,” Phil says, repeats, like he had last night, “that was the wrong way to tell him about your girlfriend.”

“I know. I just knew I had to tell him and it just sorta, came out. He had to know, and now he does.”

“What do you think he was going to say? When he said if we could just -?”

Mark blinks at him. “I don’t know.”

“But you _know_ him.” Phil watches Mark take the world’s saddest sip of tea. “You heard what he said, about the next job, it _was_ a cruel way to do it, I -”

“It was the best plan,” Mark states. “It was. I just should have prepared better for him being there. I should have let him finish talking.”

“You should,” Phil says “and you should have said you were sorry.”

Mark says “I am. Phil, I’m _so_ -”

“He doesn’t know that. Does he?” Phil wishes he’d bought himself a mug. He suddenly needs to cradle something to his chest, to keep his hands occupied.

Mark stares at him, eyes flickering all over Phil’s face. “I know you don’t think much of me anymore Phil but, you have to understand, if you only try and understand, I did it because I thought I was helping him. I knew he’d never leave me. I knew that he -”

“Loved you?”

Mark sighs. “I knew he _liked_ me, but -”

Phil says “Mark. Seriously. He loved you. You’ve read these things, he loved you. He maybe still loves you, but -”

“All of those things. But being around me wasn’t good for him, I _knew_ that, and yes I didn’t do it the right way, and I’m constantly saying things the wrong way, but I did it because I honestly, completely, thought I was helping him. That’s all.”

“I don’t understand” Phil says, finally, after trying very hard to avoid Mark’s sad eyes. “I don’t see how you couldn’t have just spoken to him. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think very much of you.”

Mark blinks a few times, rapidly, pinches at the bridge of his nose and says “okay”

“But if anything happens to Dan, on this job, as a result of this, if _anything_ happens, I won’t just not think very much of you, I’ll -”

Mark says “please. I get it. I know.”

“We paraded you around in front of him. What did we think he was going to do? How did we think he was going to react? You heard what he said.”

Mark looks dangerously close to tears. “Phil, I know. I know all of this. Did you come here to just to tell me how awful I was? What I should have said? Do you think I haven’t been thinking about that all night?”

Phil stops, halfway through a next sentence, and says “sorry. I’m sorry.”

“If anything happens to anyone, any of them, because of this, because of me -”

“Mark,” Phil interrupts. “We can’t think like that.”

Mark says “his _face_ , Phil. You saw his face.”

There’s a very gentle knock on the door, followed by Tyler saying “it’s me.”

“It’s open,” Phil calls back.

Tyler enters, holding two mugs and some of the macaroons (Phil was sure he’d eaten them all, or at least hidden the ones that were left). He takes one look at both of their faces and says “no need to ask what we’re talking about.”

He glances down at the table, while handing one mug to Phil, runs his eyes over all the paper cuttings. Phil, following his gaze, sees the one Missed Connection, pulled out of the line, separated from the others.

_Me: holding out a painting, like I was holding out my heart, my soul, everything that I am, take me with you, let me come with you, I got this for you. You: asked me who I am, how can you not know who I am, by now, and I: gave you a fake name. I can say this because you’re not even reading these. You: looked at my real name on my badge and accepted the lie. You: took Me with You._

Tyler says “wow, he really had it bad for you. Which is a slight understatement, i know.”

Mark taps his finger to it, right on the _soul_ and says “Lavender Mist.”

Phil blinks at him.

“It was the second one. And it’s next, right? You’re keeping Almond Blossoms for last, I know you are.”

Phil doesn’t reply, but of course they’re keeping Almond Blossoms for last ( _I knew you’d like it, I used to dream about stealing it for you_ ), everyone knows. He picks up the paper cutting and says “so, this was straight after New York Movie? When you took him with you?”

“I was supposed to be working with Marcus on it but I met Felix, or _we_ met Felix. I introduced him to Jack and we had lunch, I think we had lunch, in Ireland. Felix always seems to pop up, when the jobs are -”

“Then where is he now?” Phil says, abruptly.

Mark, thrown out of the flow of his story, hesitates. “I don’t know. But, we’re handling it, we don’t really need -”

Phil says “ _are_ we? Handling it? Do you think?” and winces at the harsh tone of his voice, the accusation. Mark winces away from him, pressed into the arm of the sofa, and Tyler pauses in the act of reading the other Missed Connections, eyebrows raised.

“We’re handling it” Tyler says, firmly. “It’s being handled.”

_I can say this because you’re not even reading these_

“There’s only two more. That’s all. That’s all we need to do and then it’s over. We can all return to our wonderful normal lives.” Tyler nods, to himself, as if ending the conversation. “He’s not _that_ smart.”

Phil thinks, how would Tyler know, how would any of them know, how smart or unsmart Jack is, really, when he’s a stranger to all of them. Even to Mark, who was given every clue possible. None of them get where he’s coming from, what his thought process is, what it would do to a person, to be left like that.

(Phil knows. Phil understands)

“Are we thinking there’s clues in these?” Tyler comes to the end of the Missed Connections. “Because they’re pretty melodramatic. Did you never see them, Mark?”

“I don’t read Missed Connections,” Mark replies, gathering them back into their envelope. “I never did.”

_you’re not even reading these_

~*~

When they walk back into the flat Louise and PJ are sat around the moodboard. Dan is pacing back and forth near the windows, until he sees Phil and stops. Phil wonders how this somehow became a routine of his life - get up, make tea with Tyler, talk to Mark, plan a major art heist. Louise gives Mark a concerned look, pats the space next to her on the sofa, until he sits, looking like he’s in a daze.

Dan, all of a sudden at his side, hair still all curls, says “where were you?” low and soft enough for just Phil to hear.

“Downstairs. Mark slept there.”

“In Jack’s flat?” Dan looks at Mark. “Why?”

“He feels bad. About last night. About, I don’t know, every night.”

Something about his voice, a hitch in his tone that he’s trying to hide, must echo out to Dan because he instantly says “don’t try and contact him.”

“Who?” Phil attempts to look innocent. He knows who.

“ _Jack_. Don’t try and sort this by speaking to him. Whatever happened on the job last night -”

Phil turns to him, a block between Dan and the rest of the room, “about what I said. Yesterday. About this job, I’ve been thinking -”

Dan says “no, don’t do this. You said. I’m doing this one. That was the deal, you did the last one, you’ve done _every_ one, so I -”

“The Hayward” PJ says, from across the room, popping the surface of whatever protective bubble Phil had tried to create around him and Dan. “It makes sense. It’ll be busy there, on Saturday, with it being so close to the National Theatre, and all the bars. Loads of places where you can hide a painting, where it won’t be found for weeks, massive wing full of archives and loads of walk through exhibitions. It’s perfect”

“Plus I’ve done it before,” Louise pipes up. “All of my trackers and stuff are probably still there.”

PJ claps his hands together. “So, who’s up?”

“Me.” Dan says, clearly, not looking at Phil. “I am.”

Phil flinches, involuntarily.

PJ, delighted, says “hey, it’ll be like old times, just the two of us.”

“Like old times," Dan echoes.

“And me," Mark says, suddenly, as if awaking from a deep sleep. “Me too.”

PJ gives him a doubtful look, says “you sure? Three’s a messy number to have on the ground, for a job.”

“I should be there” Mark says, decisively. “Three works sometimes, I can do the lookout for you and Dan, plus, if Jack’s there -”

“Again” PJ cuts in. “If he’s there _again_. Are you planning to be our Jack distraction on everything now?”

“This is literally only happening because -”

Phil raises his hand.

Louise, kindly, says “Phil, you don’t need to put your hand up.”

“It wasn’t a great idea,” Phil says, when they all turn to look at him. “Last time. It made things worse, it upset him.”

“It _upset_ him?” PJ looks incredulous. “I don’t care if it did, I don’t care if -”

“Phil means that it’ll make him unpredictable,” Dan says, defensively.

“Because he’s been _completely_ predictable so far” PJ turns to Mark. “That means putting everyone on the job, Mark. Three of us, Tyler doing the escape outside, and then Louise on surveillance. And if you’re being lookout then you have to use your inside voice, okay?”

“And me,” Phil says. “With Louise.”

Mark, to PJ, says “I don’t have an inside voice.”

PJ, touches his fist to his forehead, longsufferingly, “Just try. For me.”

Mark says “okay” like he’s trying to whisper but still so loud that Phil could probably still hear him if he was out on the balcony.

Phil, seizing the moment, says “hey, Mark could go instead of Dan, maybe?”

“It actually makes sense, to have three, it’s a weird location,” Louise says, apologetically, knowing exactly what he’s trying to do. “It’s good to have a lookout.”

Mark repeats “okay” just as loudly as before, then says “I think that’s actually as quiet as I can go.”

Phil repeats “maybe Mark could -” but he may as well be shouting into a void at this point, PJ has already turned back to Louise, is already gesturing back at the moodboard. He feels Dan touch at his hand, briefly hooking their index fingers together, before he steps away.

~*~

His tutor replies to his application; gives a four week extension and a four week leave of absence. There’s another email, five minutes after, asking Phil to come to his office hours today to sign the paperwork, which sounds ominous and is also the first mention of anything needing to be signed.

Dan, when he tells him, purses his lips in an effort not to pass comment and says “go on the way back from Melody’s, I’ll bring the painting back here.”

They’re in their room. Phil hadn’t heard any of the plan really, not above the roaring in his ears, the static that had started once Dan had stepped away from his side. He shakes his head, trying to clear it.

Dan, as expected, touches his fingertips to Phil’s temples and says “it’s a good plan. PJ’s plans are always good. We work well together, we _always_ worked well together. It’ll be done in an hour and then I can come home, to you.” He tilts Phil’s bowed head up, to face him. “You can watch me on the monitors the whole time. Louise’s set-up there is amazing.”

Phil says “monitors?”

“Yeah, Louise will show you. We wear wristbands and stuff. You literally can look at me for the entire time.”

“I do that anyway.”

Dan flushes, the tiniest hint along his cheekbones, and says “well, it can’t fail. In that case.”

~*~

Melody is slightly hungover. The first kitchen looks like there’s been an earthquake; an incredibly posh earthquake with scattered bottles of champagne and china plates.

Phil, holding Claude in one hand, says “uh, good party?”

Melody says “I forgot how _tiring_ they were.”

“Parties?”

“ _People_.” Melody clasps a hand to her head, dramatically. She keeps her hand there as they make slow progress down into the basement, the rest of the dogs trooping behind them. “Being entertaining. It’s exhausting.”

Lavender Mist is already out, propped up against the wall underneath Impression, Sunrise. It looks, in all honesty, just as much of a mess as the first kitchen does. Phil had never really looked at it properly, always blinded by Almond Blossoms, and he frowns now.

Melody says “I’m guessing this was next?”

One of the dogs, Leonardo possibly, skips over and knocks his tiny furry head against the canvas. The other four bounce over as Dan scoops the painting up into his arms. “You guessed right.”

Melody goes back upstairs to feed the dogs, Phil having to relinquish his grip on Claude. Free of any potential canine attacks, Dan puts the painting back down, stares at it like it’s trying to tell him something. Phil stares too, even though he has no idea what he’s looking at.

Dan, in tour guide mode again, says “okay, so, Lavender Mist. It had terrible reviews and no one really _got_ it.”

“ _I_ don’t get it” Phil replies. “I don’t think so anyway. And there’s no lavender in it.”

“He used to put the canvas on the floor of his studio and walk around it, just throwing paint down in whatever way it landed.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like.”

Lavender Mist is a chaotic mess of colours, none of which are actually lavender. It looks like it was painted, if painted is even the word, by someone who had too many ideas, too much to think about.

“Too much going on in his mind,” Dan supplies. “Too much to say and it all came out in a kaleidoscope of patterns. Like that.”

Phil blinks. “I still don’t get it.”

“I find it calming,” Dan says.

“You find _that_ calming and yet The Sea at Saintes-Maries gave you an existential crisis.”

“It wasn’t the painting that was giving me a crisis,” Dan says, slowly, obviously. He tries to recreate their conversation from the Isle of Man, the journey home, “I told you, I met this security guard, and -”

“You met me,” Phil touches his finger to Lavender Mist’s frame. “That’s how we met.”

Phil doesn’t find Lavender Mist calming at all. He doesn’t think it’s a mist, for one, it’s a swirling hurricane of black, white, silver and blue, but the wrong type of blue, not ocean blue at all, not reflecting his eyes, a dark navy blue that’s almost black. Foreboding, the build-up to a huge storm.

Dan says, “Phil”

“Maybe we could go” Phil says, barely pausing for breath once he’s started. “You must have another place, right? Another flat? I mean, PJ’s got plans, they’ve all got this covered, we could go. Anywhere you want. I’ll go anywhere. We could meet them, when it’s over, we could be safe, we could be together, we could -”

Dan catches Phil’s hands which, completely of their own volition, had been fluttering around the space between them. “We _are_ together.”

“Dan, please.”

“I can’t leave them. You know I can’t” Dan’s hands move to his shoulders. “But _you_ could. You could do all of those things, you could go, you could wait for me, I could -”

Phil repeats “Dan, please” and doesn’t even know what he means. Please what? Please don’t go, please let me save you from this, please come with me. “We could get away from this, couldn’t we?”

“Stop asking me this. Please. I want to say yes, you have no idea how much.”

“Then say it.”

Dan says “this is my mess. _My_ past, not yours” his hands bunch up the fabric on Phil’s shirt. “You could go. I could come and meet you. Anywhere, you could wait for me, I could -”

“I’m always waiting for you.”

Dan drops his hands. Phil’s shirt stays, crumpled, with the memory of his grip. He says “I know. I know you are. But, just, one last time.”

~*~

They part at the end of Melody’s street, Lavender Mist in a huge suitcase that Dan is wheeling along behind him. Phil feels drained, like he’s spent the past hour crying. Dan says “I could come with you.”

“To meet my tutor?” Phil shakes his head even as he’s speaking. “It’ll be boring. And we’ll mostly be talking about my project, which I haven’t even started.”

Dan does the usual pressing his lips into a straight line expression that he gets whenever Phil’s post grad comes up.

Phil says “I’ll be back. Don’t leave without me.”

Dan, sincerely, says “I never would.”

~*~

(Dan, somewhere in the aftermath of the Tate, definitely the immediate days after Phil had found him because Phil knows, in this exact memory, he is curled around Dan’s back while he makes dinner. He didn’t let Dan out of his sight much, in those immediate days, when they didn’t leave the Camden flat for a week, watching tv with their little fingers hooked together.

Dan said “it still sounds weird when you say my name. It’s like I’m dreaming it.”

Phil said “okay, _Dan_ ” just to delight at the shudder that went through Dan’s body at the sound of it.

“I remember the first time you said it. In the shop.” Dan turned around in Phil’s arms. “You remember? You said that you’d hoped I was lying. You said you thought I wasn’t coming back.”

“I said I thought you _were_ coming back,” Phil said. “And I was right.”

He’d pressed Dan against their kitchen counter before the rest of that particular conversation could be remembered. He could still hear his own voice, higher pitched and trying to avoid any tone that would give away emotions, saying _I thought you were coming back. I thought it was a test and I failed it_.)

~*~

His tutor says “Philip!” in a surprised way, followed by “I wasn’t expecting you..”

Phil blinks and says “sorry?”

“I wasn’t expecting you. Do you have some work for me to look over?”

Phil says “but you -” and then stops. “You emailed me.”

“About the extension, yes.” He stares at Phil, expectantly. Phil stares back. It gets awkward.

He ends up talking about his, still non existent, post grad project for twenty minutes, almost impressing himself with his ability to wing it, saying a whole load of words for not very much at all. He doesn’t even realise what he’s saying until the tutor interrupts and says “like that lady in Paris.”

Phil, stopped mid-flow, blinks in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“You were saying, about doing a piece about people not being defined by their pasts, about the reasons why people do things.”

“I was?” Phil clears his throat. “I mean, yes. Of course I was.”

“I thought about that lady in Paris, the one who stole the painting. I don’t remember what -”

“It was a Matisse.”

“Oh, right! But there was an article about her today, in The Times. It was very sad, you should read it. It really fits in with what it sounds like your main theme is, about accepting every part of something.”

Phil thinks _I’m doing my post grad about Dan_ because  of course he’s doing his post grad about Dan, who else would anything in his life ever be about? He says “today? Is she okay?”

His tutor looks startled at the simplicity of the question. “Pardon?”

“I mean, I don’t know much about it, but if there was an article, I know she handed herself in, and just - is she okay?”

“The foundation didn’t want to press charges but I’m not sure about the French police. She’s under house arrest, they had photos, she has the most beautiful rooftop garden. It was funny, actually, do you know police forces have a fine arts department? Just for art thefts?”

Phil says “no. I didn’t” and really wishes that was still the case.

~*~

He’s completely unsurprised when he leaves the office to see Jack, in a smart black coat, his hair covered by a knitted hat, Phil would guess that he’s on his way to work. Jack raises his hand and smiles, like they’re friends, like he’s been waiting.

When Phil doesn’t offer anything by way of response he says “sorry about this."

“About _what_?”

“Getting you here under false pretences. Which, by the way, check the email address before you skip off to meet people, anything could have happened.”

Phil repeats “anything?”

Jack looks tired, the paleness of his face sharp against the wide blue of his eyes. He’s smiling, but it’s a mere upturn of his mouth with no real feeling behind it. He says “can we get a coffee?”

~*~

(Jack had spun across the huge open space of the Holbourne’s ballroom, Lavender Mist in hand, like the star of his own costume drama. Mark watched him and smiled, and Jack had pretended that he looked fond. A little.

Jack had pretended that Mark, in that moment, had suddenly thought _oh my god I love him_ or at least some variation on that, numerous other versions that Jack, staring down at the chaos of lines and smudges in his arms, had imagined over and over.

They mostly all came down to _oh my god I love him_ though. Mark had stepped towards him and Jack thought _yes_ and _now_ and _please_ , was already planning his response.

Mark, gently, said “we were doing this tomorrow.”

“I know,” Jack said, an air of defeat in his voice that Mark didn’t notice. “But there was a wedding, today, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity” he gestured down at his suit. “I’m a waiter."

His name badge said Sean. Mark’s eyes, as always, danced straight over it. “You should wait, Jack. You can’t run in on your own, even if that’s what you used to do before.”

Jack said “I’m sorry. It’s just that the timing was right, I knew I could do it, and it’s better to just get it done. Right?”

“You didn’t have to do it. I’m here. We’re a team.” Mark had reached out and grabbed Jack’s shoulder. If he noticed the tremor that went through Jack’s entire body (entire heart) then he was too nice to say so. “We’re working together.”

Jack stepped out, reluctantly, from his grasp and held out the canvas. “Well, here we go. I got it for you.”

Mark said “well, thanks. You shouldn’t have” and then smiled his most heartbreaking, movie star smile, swung the painting under his arm like it was nothing. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel, in the morning?”

Jack blinked, something caught in his throat, and said “oh, I thought we could -” but the words died somewhere before he could finish.

Mark waited, patiently, for a few seconds, then said “what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”)

~*~

The college coffee shop isn’t great, even if it does have a great view of the river. The coffee is always bitter and the shortbread is always stale, even if the lady behind the counter always smiles at Phil like she’s saved the best piece just for him. She does that today, says “oh, Phil, it’s you! We haven’t seen you for a while!”, produces a huge plate of biscuits from somewhere secret and lets him pick.

She makes Jack pick from the shelf of sad looking pastries by the till. Jack does so and, while they pay, whispers “so, that really does happen to you everywhere you go”, clarifies off Phil’s confused look “people having crushes on you. You being oblivious.”

Phil says “it’s just some shortbread.”

Jack, accepting his change, says “it must be great. Being you” with a wistful air to his voice, breezing through the words until Phil thinks he’d imagined it.

They sit near the window. Phil watches the Thames, the tiny waves, the gentle motion of the current, waits for it to calm him. It doesn’t. Jack takes a gulp of his coffee and instantly grimaces, then follows Phil’s gaze. “You like the river?”

“It usually calms me down,” Phil says. He’s looking directly at the Hayward, looming (all ugly grey and concrete) from the other side, on the Southbank. “It’s not really working.”

Jack stares out the window with him. “I get that.”

“You said” Phil says. “If only you’d had a me, in your life before.”

Jack looks startled for a second, then smiles, almost. “You literally remember anything anyone ever says to you.”

“If it’s important” Phil replies. “You asked if I understand you a little better now, and I didn’t answer you, but I _should_ have answered you, because -”

Jack says “Phil, this is all too late. The sympathy. And that’s not on you, I mean, you came into this at the end. Acting like you want to listen to me now, it’s -”

“I do want to listen to you!” Phil says. “I’m not acting. Mark told me what happened, from his side, I read the Missed Connections, but I don’t think that anyone’s ever really listened to _you_.”

Jack frowns, for a second, “the Missed Connections? How?”

“You kept them. They were in an envelope in the downstairs flat.”

“Of course. Why did I keep them?”

Phil thinks this is a hypothetical question until he realises Jack is staring at him, waiting for a reply. “I don’t know. To make it real? To confirm it actually happened?”

”Like keeping photos in a frame,” Jack agrees.

Phil starts, like a electric shock (a tiny one, in the Dylan recess of his heart. He clutches at his own sleeve as if to say _stop that, Dylan wasn’t real_ ). “Yes, exactly like that.”

Jack leans his head to one side. When he speaks it’s his small voice, the softer accented one. “What’s going on here, Phil? What do you want from me?”

“You came _here_ ” Phil points out. “Why?”

“I don’t know” Jack replies, completely honestly. “I don’t know. I regret ever coming here in the first place, it shouldn’t have been you. Even though it worked. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever felt bad about a plan working.”

Phil says “but it didn’t work. Not really.”

“Not yet. I mean, it’s _working_. It  will work. But, yeah, I was kinda expecting to talk you into something on Almond Blossoms, but -” he shrugs.

“But you underestimated me.”

“I underestimated you,” Jack agrees. “You and your incredibly sweet, but also horrendously stupid, protective instincts.”

“Why did you come here? Why did you get me to come here?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe I miss our talks or something, I don’t -” Jack huffs a laugh, to try and cover the complete sincerity of his tone.

“We can talk,” Phil says.

“Why would you possibly want to talk to me?”

“I told you. I read the Missed Connections, I spoke to Mark, he told me. About the Met.”

Jack stops stirring his coffee, freezes completely in pose, like Phil has leaned over and hit his power off switch. He blinks, several times, and says “the Met?” in his soft voice. The one that only appears sometimes. Phil wonders, again, if this is Jack’s real voice, if it’s Sean’s voice.

“And then, you stole loads of things, and -”

“They were all in New York” Jack says, voice still soft and far away. “The jobs. All in New York. And actually they weren’t even _jobs_ , no one assigned them to me. It was a spree, or that’s what the police were saying. Or something. For a few months after Modern Rome” he looks at Phil. “But you probably weren’t paying much attention to the news then”

The months after Modern Rome. The months between Manchester and the Tate. Phil says “no. I wasn’t”

“I was in New York that whole time. I got a job. Can you guess where?”

Phil, weakly, says “at the Met?”

Jack frowns, as if annoyed by his past self. “I waited. I took every early morning shift, every late one. And I waited. I thought I’d misunderstood. No one ever contacted me but, I thought, at some point he’d show up. And I waited.”

“And you’re still waiting?”

Jack, loudly, back to his other voice, the showy one, says “that would be pretty pathetic wouldn’t it?” but his eyes give him away.

“The situation,” Phil says, as gently as he can manage “isn’t going to change.”

“He never noticed. That they were all in New York.”

“It’s not going to change anything.”

“I know” Jack suddenly, with a random explosion of energy, downs both his coffee and what was left of Phil’s, and stands up. “It makes me feel better though.”

Phil, for a change, stands with him. “How can it possibly be making you feel better?”

“Because he never _noticed_. None of them did. Well, except you, but that comes back to the start of this conversation, doesn’t it?” Jack shrugs, pulls a pair of lime green gloves from his coat pocket. “I think that’s what I wanted to say. I think that’s why I came here.”

“Jack, if you want to be noticed, then -”

“I’m going the right way about it,” Jack says, eyes bright with _something_. “They’re noticing me now.”

They walk back through the tables, Jack’s stride is steady and confident but his hands are curled into fists at his side. Phil bumps into at least three tables in a rush to keep up with him. When they reach the main door Jack looks at him, unsure, frowning, like he wasn’t expecting that Phil would still be there, that he surely would have fallen over his feet or got lost somewhere on the way.

Jack says, politely, as though he’s asking Phil to a dance “can I walk you out?”

“I feel like you were probably going to do that anyway.”

~*~

He gets back to the flat in a daze.

Mark, PJ and Dan all have wristbands, fairly innocent looking, like the old Reading Festival ones that Dan was always wearing in photos of him as a teenager (the photos Phil had poured over, had committed to memory, while at Dan’s parents’ house). It’s papery and light, and catches on Phil’s cheek when Dan touches his hand to Phil’s face.

“You’ve been gone a while,” Dan says, not suspicious, but mildly questioning.

“We got talking about my project” Phil turns his head into Dan’s palm. “I didn’t realise how long I’d been” he taps his finger to the band. “This is what I can use to watch you on camera?”

When Louise says “yes” Phil jumps, having forgotten that there were other people in the room (having forgotten there were other people in the world) who aren’t him and Dan. “They’ll just show up as coloured dots on the monitor but we can watch them.”

“My dot is black,” Dan tells Phil.

“Well, of course.”

Louise says “show him the signals.”

Phil links his index finger and thumb around Dan’s wrist, like a seperate bracelet, as Dan says “okay” and makes a perfect circle in the air, taking Phil’s hand with him. “That means everything’s fine.”

Phil nods and says “I’m going to need you to do that constantly.”

Dan completes a triangle “that means job complete, or painting returned”, and then a plus sign, two sharp lines that apparently mean “there’s an issue but we’re on top of it.”

PJ coughs, politely, and says “and the last one” completing a figure 8 in the air with as much flourish as a magician completing a trick.

Phil watches him. “And that means?”

The very fact that Dan, suddenly, won’t meet his eyes basically answers the question.

“It means position compromised. Or we’ve been found. Or whatever other way you want to word it” PJ drops his arm. “If that happens we have to get rid of the bands, just in case. Louise knows what to do, then.”

“Get rid of them?”

“They’re easy to destroy,” Louise makes a tearing motion in the air. “And if you’re caught, then it’s best not to get caught with a really expensive tracker on you.”

There’s also a whole pile of clothing and what looks like wigs on their coffee table. Tyler, pawing through it, says “props.”

PJ says “for characterisation. The blond one’s for Dan.”

Phil had always imagined that there would be more disguises. Had imagined, in the post-Manchester days, that Dylan had been a disguise. That Dan, the other side of a basement door, was removing his dimples, straightening out the wave in his hair, diluting the colour of his eyes, applying a dimmer switch to the overwhelming brightness of his smile. He doesn’t know how you could look like Dan and _not_ wear a disguise.

~*~

“I haven’t written you a letter,” Phil says, later, in their room. He feels like he should bring it up again. Dan, in full costume, is pretending to ignore the fact that Phil is wearing his coat and scarf, fully prepared to come with him.

Dan’s blond wig is startling, the contrast against his face. He’s wearing a pastel sweater, a light blue hoodie, apparently all to look like a student. It’s like looking at Dan and not looking at him at the same time. It makes his eyes look even darker, when they blink at Phil. “I know. That’s okay. We talked about it yesterday, remember?”

“I feel like I should have written you one.”

Dan says “Phil. It’s okay.”

Phil, finally, says “I’ll come with you. Please. I promise I’ll leave when I’m supposed to.”

Dan shakes his head so vigorously that Phil’s amazed the wig stays on. “No, that’s a terrible idea.”

“But I -”

“You won’t leave. I know you won’t, _you_ know you won’t.”

“I promise I will.”

“And I won’t be able to let you go.” Dan pulls at his new fringe, too long around the side of his face. “How can I let you walk away from me, once you’re there?”

Phil, unfairly, says “Dan, please” in a tone of voice that never usually fails, but has been failing rather frequently of late. “Please. Tell me where I have to leave you and I will. I just. I would have to see you.”

Dan repeats “tell you where you have to leave me?”

“Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Dan pinches the bridge of his nose and says “the gift shop. I have to act like I’ve missed something and then go back, then I’m meeting PJ.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“But you have to leave. Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, act like we don’t even know each other.”

Phil isn’t sure about the last part, even if, on the tube, he keeps doing a double-take at Dan, sat a few seats away (they’re all sat apart. On purpose). Dan tries very hard not to stare back at him, Phil can tell by the tensing of his jaw. When they get off at their stop, carried along with a crowd of people onto the station, Dan whispers, right at his ear, “you need to stop looking at me.”

He walks on before Phil can answer him, leaves Phil saying “but it’s impossible” to a very confused woman stood just in front of him.

~*~

They stand in separate queues. PJ first, painting in a smart business folio, tweed blazer, like he’s just stopped off in the gallery on his way from a meeting. He checks his watch and tuts a lot (Phil isn’t sure if this is actual PJ or whatever character he’s playing). Mark, still with a slight shellshocked air, stands in the third queue, even though it’s the longest, and the cashier has to call him three times before he’s realised that he’s next in line. He’s got a camera and three rucksacks, a map of London held in his hand.

Phil stands three people behind Dan, keeps the same steady distance as they both purchase their tickets and collect their maps. Dan is all fake casualness, he has a notebook that he’s pretending to write in, but Phil can see him looking up to the ceilings, working out where all the exits are. Being with Dan on a job is still an odd experience.

He overtakes Dan in the second room, which is full of bronze statues of people in everyday clothing, everyday poses, which freaks him out in a way that he can’t explain. He bumps into a sculpture kneeling by the window, bronze arms leaning on the windowsill, and says “whoops, sorry”. He’s sure he hears Dan laugh.

~*~

One of the installations is a huge tunnel of light bulbs, with a wooden walkway that Phil walks through very slowly, watching the lights flicker over the metallic grey of his sweater, making it look like chainmail. They turn off and on, in various patterns, strobing like he’s in a very sedate nightclub. He pretends to be fascinated by it, drags his feet, looks at the lights above him, around him, below him.

Dan walks right into his back, presses into his shoulder. “I see what you’re doing.”

“Maybe I could -”

Dan shakes his head. “You promised. I heard you.”

Phil turns to face him, which was a huge mistake. The lights catch on the ultraviolet strands of Dan’s hair (or, not Dan’s hair), strobing into the dark of his eyes. He feels his breath catch, every beat of his heart catch. He blinks as the lights switch off, and then back on.

Dan, softly, says “we’re meant to be acting like we don’t know each other.”

“That’s not possible,” Phil replies.

“The security footage would get reviewed, if -” Dan recites, PJ-style. “They’d instantly start looking for you. If it looks like we know each other.”

“Then we should probably look like strangers who’ve seen each other for the first time?” Phil shrugs, but takes a step away, blinks colourful spots out of his eyes.

Strangers who are saying _no wait stay_ he supposes.

Dan’s eyes look like they’re saying just that. What he actually says is “I told you this was an awful idea.”

He steps politely around Phil and continues down the tunnel, just as the lights switch off. When they come back on, he’s gone.

~*~

They finish at the gift shop, just the two of them, PJ and Mark having disappeared to their hiding spots just after the fourth room. It’s bigger than the one in the Tate, full of huge hardback books from exhibitions not even in the Hayward.

(The last time they’d been in a gift shop together Phil had approached Dan, hiding behind a barricade of maps and leaflets, and said _I’m not going to ask you to stay. I’d like you to, but I’m not going to ask_ because, somewhere, along the way, he’d fallen completely back in love with this boy. If he’d ever stopped loving him in the first place.)

There’s a book on the piano exhibition. You Can Play This. Phil, sitting silently beside Dan while he played Moonlight Sonata. Wanting to take him home.

He watches Dan’s eyes widen as he sees it, watches him reach out and touch the cover, fingers twitching like he wants to pick it up. It’s the same book they own, the same one Dan got given as a leaving present (it came with a card wishing Liam good luck). Phil knows that the Ophelia piano is on page 30, a photo of it in the hall before it arrived in their living room. Their copy is folded down on that page.

Phil moves to Dan’s side of the table, stands close enough that their elbows are nearly touching, but not so close as to look suspicious. He knows he’s overstayed the time he promised.

Dan whispers “go” but it sounds like _stay_.

Phil whispers “always” back and steps away. He feels a tug on his sleeve which, when he looks down, turns out to be Dan. Dan looks startled, like his hand had shot out of its own accord, and immediately folds his arms.

Phil mumbles “no, that’s not fair” to which Dan tilts his head, apologetically. Phil has to turn away, can’t look at him when he’s seconds away from pulling the wig from Dan’s head and forcibly carrying him to the Isle of Man. Or Japan. Or his tiny flat in Manchester. Somewhere they had been happy. Where it would be safe, where everything would be safe.

Dan, behind him, coughs in a choking manner, a cough to cover up something else, and Phil turns back to look at him.

Dan looks startled and Phil thinks wait, I wasn’t supposed to look at you. He says “sorry, I’m sorry” too loudly and knocks into every display possible on his way out of the shop.

~*~

Louise is in another of Felix’s flats, a penthouse just across the river on the Embankment. They can look at the Hayward from the window. It’s all glass and black furnishings, and Louise (in her floral skirt and pink tipped hair) looks terribly out of place, sitting at a huge oak table surrounded by four laptops.

She says “oh _Phil_ ” the moment she catches sight of his face. “I said it wasn’t a great idea.”

One of the laptops is open, already to the screen showing the Hayward floor plans, lines forming doorways, cupboards, safe places to hide. There’s a red dot and a purple one, both moving in opposite corners, but Phil can only look at the black dot, meandering in the bottom right.

“I set up a computer with just Dan for you” Louise says, pointing to another laptop at the opposite end of the table. “You remember the signals, right?”

As it knowing what they’re talking about, PJ’s purple dot makes a gentle circle (a small one, but enough for them to see). The gallery closes in ten minutes, PJ and Mark (bright red dot, currently in a supply cupboard hidden right at the end of one of the walk through exhibits) in position, Dan just about to get there.

“You ready?” Louise says. She has three phones in front of her, fingers poised over her keyboard like she’s about to play the piano. “All I need you to do is watch Dan.”

Dan makes it into his position and completes a small, perfect circle.

~*~

Phil, honestly, has no clue what PJ and Mark are doing (though Louise is making approving noises, so the job must be going well) - he just watches Dan, on this bizarre version of the Marauders’ Map, making careful progress around the outskirts of the room, obviously acting as a lookout for PJ who, as planned, is in the Hayward archives, depositing Lavender Mist under the wrong name, the wrong artist, where it can wait to be found until the next exhibition.

Phil watches Dan walk up, and then down. Down and then up.

Louise says “huh. Watch Mark for me a sec.”

Phil drags his eyes from Dan to Mark’s red dot, mirroring Dan’s route but on the opposite side of the room. Or, he should be, he’s currently stopped in place.

PJ re-enters the room and completes a triangle. Both he and Dan move closer to Mark.

Mark moves, twice, a plus sign. There’s an issue but we’re on top of it.

Louise blinks at one of the other laptops. “None of the alarms have been triggered, the cameras are all still down. I don’t get what he means” she taps at something. “There’s nothing.”

Phil says “the tracker on the painting.”

“That would only be triggering _now_ , that’s not enough time for anything to happen.” Louise taps on all three phones. “Get moving now, please.”

The dots all separate, suddenly, like a game of Agario, then seem to follow PJ out into the next room, one of the ones that leads through to the National Theatre. Louise keeps her eyes on PJ while somehow also messaging Tyler.

Phil only watches Dan, back of the group, keeping a steady pace with Mark and PJ until he stops. Phil says “Dan. Keep moving” which is ridiculous because Dan can’t hear him.

The black dot moves, in a figure 8. Once. Phil reaches out. Figure 8, twice, larger this time. Phil presses his hand to the screen.

Then, all of a sudden, the dot, _Dan_ , blinks out of view.

~*~

Phil says “Louise” but the word won’t actually come out of his mouth. It circles around his heart, _Louise, Louise, Louise_ , before it eventually emerges, a mangled mess of her name that he’s amazed she understands.

Louise says “Phil?”

“It’s the - you need to -” Phil presses his fingertips to his temples, _do something, do something, do something_. “He’s not -”

Louise instantly says “it’s okay” and comes over, starts clicking away at the keyboard. The clicks start slowly, decisively, but get more frantic. She repeats “it’s okay.”

Phil says “he’s not _there_ ,” outstretches the hand that isn’t clasped to his forehead, like he can magic Dan back onto the screen.

On Louise’s laptop, PJ’s purple dot begins making a figure 8. Phil watches it, and as he does, Mark’s red dot joins in, the sweeping motion far bigger than when PJ had demonstrated earlier. Phil counts five from them both.

One of Louise’s other computers starts making a beeping noise. Louise says “alarms. How?”

Mark suddenly blinks out of view. PJ continues to figure 8 desperately, getting messier every time.

Louise says “drop the tracker Peej, _drop it_.”

The purple dot disappears.

~*~

Jack had walked with him, out of the college building and down onto the street. Like the first time, the _this is where he meets you, isn’t it?_ time. When Jack had said _I wanted to help you_. But it was fake, it was all fake.

“Not all of it” Jack said. “And I don’t blame you much for not believing me but I did want to help you. I do. When this is done I’ll make sure nothing comes back on you, I promise. You were never in any danger, I never put you anywhere that I couldn’t save you from.”

Phil said “ _what_ ”

Jack blinked, repeated “I never put you anywhere that I couldn’t save you from.”

“Physically maybe.”

Jack winced. “I was going to stop at Almond Blossoms, with you, on my list. My order. That was going to be the one. It’s a bit different, so I was gonna -”

“If he, if you -” Phil stopped, had to start again, “if you take him away from me I’m not coming back from that. There’s no saving me from that.”

Jack pointed to himself and said, voice filled with regret, “case in point.”

Phil said “you don’t need to do this.”

Jack, seconds before he disappeared into the crowd, said “I do. You don’t understand.”

~*~

Yelling into his phone, running down the stairs, Jack not answering, because of course he wasn’t answering, but when he _did_ it would be to a litany of messages from Phil; breathless messages that got strange looks from passers-by while he ran to the river, exclaiming on each breath _you didn’t need to do this, you didn’t have to do this_

From behind him Louise, who he’d honestly forgotten was there, says “Phil, wait” but he can’t.

He had looked at the Hayward. Today. Jack sitting right next to him. He’d felt Jack follow his gaze, look where he was looking, and he had STILL looked directly at the Hayward.

Louise says “Phil, _wait_ ” but he doesn’t, is out on the Embankment before she’s even cleared the third flight of stairs.

~*~

(the first time he met Jack he’d slipped and fallen, a memory that seems from years ago. Slipped and fallen into the gap where Dan usually was, where Dan would normally catch him. Slipped and fallen because of Jack, always steps ahead of him, knocking him off guard then, right at the start.

At home Dan had said _you fell_ because he always did.

Phil said _see what happens when you’re not around_ )

~*~

He’s imagined losing Dan in so many different ways. He didn’t expect it, in the end, to be like this - standing at the opposite side of the Thames, in one of his favourite places in London, watching Dan get, rather gently all things considered, placed in the back of a police car. The Hayward is illuminated in a way that Phil now recognises, blue siren lights bouncing off the river.

Dan pauses, momentarily, to look up at the sky. The wig is gone and his hair is all curls, a collection of ringlets that Phil wants to touch. He looks down and somewhere in the motion his eyes catch on Phil.

In a crowd of people, a city of people, the other side of a river, his eyes will always catch on Phil.

Dan tilts his head in Phil’s direction, he’s too far away for Phil to see the expression on his face. The officer has one hand on Dan’s shoulder, the other holding his left arm, but Dan has one hand free and he pulls (and pulls) at his collar.

Phil used to tell Dan he was a supernova in his heart because it was cheesy and it made Dan laugh, and because it also expressed how Dan made him feel, an explosion of fireworks, an electric feel that simmered in the air around them, whenever they were together.

A supernova, though, is a dying star. Phil should have researched that better. Though it’s suddenly fitting now. _Dan, you’re a supernova in my heart. You’re the final explosion before my heart gives up and breaks_.

He presses one hand to his chest, pulls at the round collar of his t-shirt so hard that he probably tears it.

Dan is pushed down into the car and disappears from view.

Tell me where I have to leave you and I will.

~*~

Louise says “we have to go” and then “where’s _Mark?_ ” and then “Phil, get up, please” because he, without realising, has sunk down to his knees. Louise pulls at his shoulder. “Phil, we can’t stay.”

Phil finally registers that there are in fact two cars, now pulling off the South Bank onto the main street above. He says “PJ” because he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even seen.

Louise finally gets him to his feet, he sags against her, almost drunk with the feeling. She says “yes. Both of them. I couldn’t see Mark. I can’t see Mark. But we can’t wait. We have to go back to the flat.”

Phil says “Tyler.”

“Tyler has his own instructions. He won’t be coming back with us. I’ll message him on the way.”

Phil says “ _Dan_ ”

Louise says “I know, Phil, I know.”

~*~

Phil thinks wow, you thought you could keep him with you, you thought that you could keep him safe, well done Phil. You thought that you were _helping_. Louise keeps him walking, one foot in front of the other, onto the tube, to Camden. Tyler messages, going in the opposite direction, following whatever the _instructions_ were.

He messages Phil, separately, the text just says _Elysian Fields_ and Phil wants to cry, is amazed he hasn’t cried already, makes a dry sobbing noise devoid of any tears. Tyler and his metaphors, his Greek mythology facts, Orpheus looked back at Eurydice and so she got left in the Underworld. There _is_ no happy ending to that story.

He turned back to look. He kept looking even when he’d promised not to. And so, he had lost him.

~*~

Phil says “Louise” like he’s having to drag his voice up from his feet.

Louise says “Phil” and sounds about the same. She looks like she’s been crying, her make-up, for the first time in the months that Phil has known her, is smudged.

“It’s not over” Phil says. “It can’t be.”

Louise shakes her head. “Oh, Phil. It is. It worked, whatever his plan was, it worked. They’ll keep them in and then they’ll find Lavender Mist, and Jack knows _exactly_ where the others are, you know that.”

“But, we can’t just -”

“I understand” Louise is trying to sound soothing, her hands (tearing at the remains of Tyler’s moodboard) give her away. “But you have to know when to accept defeat. It’s too dangerous now.”

“But, I -”

“I love him too,” Louise says.

Phil thinks _no, no, not like me, there’s no possible way that anyone could love him like me_.

“I love them all but, Phil, there’s too much. You can never hide from your past. You can _try_ , but you can’t sustain it. Who can?”

Phil looks at her, as the board, with only Almond Blossoms left, folds to the ground. “So, what now? You’re leaving?”

“I have to get far away, you have to -”

“You’re leaving.”

Louise says “I have a _daughter_ ” and instantly clasps her hand over her mouth to smother the sob that follows.

Phil, helplessly, says “oh.”

“You have to come with me.” Louise, muffled behind her hand, gives him a desperate look. “He’ll want you to come with me. Just so I can see that you’re somewhere safe.”

Phil says “no” and then “no” when she shakes her head and then “ _no_ ” when she repeats his name. “I have to stay here. Where he is, I can’t leave him.”

“He’s not _here_ ,” Louise replies.

Phil presses his hands to his face, attempts to stop the awful, pathetic, wail noise that bubbles from his heart into his mouth. He says “I have to stay here” and they’re barely words, really.

~*~

Phil remembers saying _when I said let’s never talk about this again, I’m not sure that was realistic_ , which had been a complete understatement. Dan, weeks later, _it’s who I am. Good or bad. You can’t just pick the parts you like and ignore the rest_.

It’s not editing. You can’t create your own narrative out of a selection of your favourite memories. You can’t carefully select your photos so you don’t include any from Manchester. You can’t freeze to the spot every time you see a Van Gogh painting. You can’t lie to your mother about how you met your boyfriend. You came back.

And for that, you can’t leave him.

~*~

Louise won’t leave either, however much she wants to. She paces around the living room, does laps that cross into the hallway, through the kitchen. She says “Phil, what would you even do here?”

Phil says “Almond Blossoms.”

Louise stares at him. “What?”

“I have to finish it. Almond Blossoms. It’s the last one.”

Louise says, carefully, “Phil, there’s no one here to help you.”

“I don’t care. I have to finish the list, it _needs_ to be finished.”

Louise, current route having taken her into the hallway, stops and stretches her hand out to him. “Come with me.”

Phil, in the living room, does not reach back. “I can’t.”

“I don’t want to _leave_ you.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. I was fine last time, and I’ll be -”

“You can’t try and do that job. It’s too risky. Where would you even take it?”

Phil says “I haven’t exactly thought about that yet.”

Louise walks back into the living room. She says “this is madness” and “you should be somewhere safe, we both should be” but she says both of these things while picking up Tyler’s drawing of Almond Blossoms from the floor. “I should be making you come with me.”

Phil watches her, wringing his hands in a way that hasn’t stopped since they came back to the flat, and says “you’re not going to?”

“ _I_ want to leave” Louise says, patting her hand to her chest. “ _I_ want to. But how can I? You, on your own, in this flat.” She puts Almond Blossoms back down, on their coffee table, and grabs Phil’s flailing hands. “You need to breathe, Phil.”

Phil hadn’t been aware that he wasn’t. He gives her a startled look and inhales. Exhales. Louise nods encouragingly. He inhales and exhales again.

“Good” Louise says. “That’s good. Now, listen. It’s just us Phil, you and me. But, I’m going to be honest with you, there’s a high likelihood that I’m about to get caught too, okay? Once they start investigating, whenever that’s going to be.”

Phil nods, inhales deeply.

“We know that they hid Lavender Mist, somewhere hard to find, Jack will have known that too. That means Jack has something else, up his sleeve, probably tomorrow, whatever he called it with you, the big finale.”

Phil exhales and says “Almond Blossoms.”

“But it wasn’t meant to be Almond Blossoms” Louise shakes her head. “I’ll help, I’ll try to help, but whenever this goes off, I’m not -”

“You should go” Phil says. “You should. I can do it."

Louise’s face does something complicated. A mixture of maternal and proud. She releases his hands, touches her palm to his forehead, like she’s checking his temperature. “I’m not talking you out of this, am I?”

Phil says “I need him to stay.”

“Then the big finale needs to not happen.”

“I know. I can think of something. I _will_ think of -”

Louise sits down, tidies her skirt and looks up at him. “Then we’ve got a pretty busy day tomorrow, haven’t we?”

Phil wants to smile at her, he really does, but his mouth just twists sadly, like a grimace. He says “Louise, you don’t -”

“I love him too,” Louise interrupts, complete decisiveness. “I love them both.”

She makes him a “coffee” that’s really mostly whisky, to help him sleep (she doesn’t even pretend with hers, just pours a neat double measure), says “we’ll get started in the morning. It’s not beyond help. It’s not beyond saving. Not yet.”

He’s halfway down to the corridor to their room, to their bed, when Louise stops him, gentle hand on his arm and, of course, of _course_ , hands him the letter. The Letter, capitalised.

“I promised I would” she says, patting him on the shoulder.

The first thing he sees when he enters the room is Dan’s silver jacket, still flung over a desk chair, exactly where Phil had thrown it, from Dan’s shoulders, two nights ago. The light outside makes it glitter. It smells of Dan’s aftershave when Phil presses it to his face, the sequins catching on every one of his (finally arriving) tears.

~*~

The four pages of the letter are now torn in places, and folded into multiple squares mostly, he supposes, from him reading sections and then not being able to continue because to continue would make it real.

Except now it is real.

~*~

Phil sleeps with the letter on the bedside table, his side. The bed is large, far too large, and he has no idea how to sleep by himself in a bed this size, curled up in one corner, like he’s leaving room for someone to curl up beside him. He should have done that this morning, with Dan; he should have done so many things, with Dan.

He should have thrown the Monet in the lock, like he’d wanted to. He should have closed the door in Felix’s face. He shouldn’t have spoken to Madame Darbonne, shouldn’t have spoken to any of them. He should have stayed in his room, on the balcony, across the hall, listening to whispered conversations from the living room. He should have taken the right exit.

He should have turned, in the flower room, to every other guard and said _no, it’s all him_ and pointed to Jack. He should have looked at Jack’s smiling face in Melody’s photo and _known_.

Jack, who had said _how could you ever do this on your own, how were you ever going to help him by yourself_. Jack, who had said _and you thought you could keep him with you_ , full of self loathing because this, this whole thing, was only because he couldn’t keep Mark with him.

~*~

But, the thing is, they _are_ their collective pasts. They  are stolen Van Goghs, impossibly blue seas painted to catch the sun reflection, fake names, and emergency codes on locked basement doors. Sad faces drawn into the condensation of Starbucks’ windows, anime theme tunes played on a piano, a llama in a meadow, the ways in which we show love without realising, a series of pauses on a security camera, a collection of memories stored in a giant photo frame, they are _there you are_ and _always_ , an ex-art thief and an ex-security guard. They’re exactly that.

Phil dreams, fitfully, of Jack, dressed in one of Felix’s pastel suits, talking with Mark’s voice, saying _how could you ever do this on your own_ , as cherry blossoms fall from the sky onto his mother’s rock garden, where Dan is standing, hair fluttering, all the zippers on his ridiculous coat catching the sun. He waves a mittened hand in Phil’s direction. Phil loves him so (so) much.

Phil is wearing his security guard uniform, the nicer one, from the Tate. The waves around their little patch of cliff are Saintes-Maries blue.

Dan continues to wave, like they’re on passing ships, like Phil somehow won’t see him, _Dan, you’re a supernova in my heart. You’re the most beautiful explosion, one that can be seen from galaxies away_.

 _How could you ever do this on your own?_ Jack with Mark’s voice says. _How could you ever save him?_

Phil pulls on his shirt collar and says “watch me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Lavender Mist actually lives in the National Gallery of Art East Building in Washington DC (which also has a pretty awesome sculpture garden). I have hugely reduced the size because it’s ginormous irl (there is no possible way that a person could carry it). It’s also never been in the Holbourne (which is in Bath, shout out to my current residence), I just wanted a gallery with a ballroom!
> 
> \- The Hayward is a very cool gallery on the South Bank, in London. It’s actually closed for refurbishments irl, but all of the exhibits mentioned are real. Go and visit it when it re-opens next year! The tunnel of lights was part of Carsten Holler’s Decision exhibition, and you can look at it [here](http://handluggageonly.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/001-carsten-holler-theredlist.jpg)
> 
> \- also thanks to [fourthingsandawizard](http://fourthingsandawizard.tumblr.com), whose quote from Chapter 7 regarding Phil was stolen and used here :D 
> 
> (I’m on tumblr at [leblonde](https://leblonde.tumblr.com). Come say hi!)


	11. ophelia - john everett millais  (interlude)

The owner of the Tate had been very posh and very blond, with a handshake so weak that he and Phil had stood, for a few seconds, just holding hands, fingers on each other’s wrists. Phil, still slightly drained from two days of questions and weak cups of tea made by police station secretaries, had clung on longer than he’d meant to.

“You can have anything you want,” the owner had said. “Anything. Brigitta has offered a large contribution. Just name the price. Anything.”

Phil, having planned for this exact question because of a never-forgotten promise made months before, said, “actually, can I have one of the pianos?”

“The pianos? From the exhibition?”

“Yeah.” Phil knew his tone was giving something away. It sounded desperate, slightly pleading, even to his own ears. “I mean, if that’s okay. I can show you which one.”

The owner still looked confused. “They’re pretty old though. And mostly out of tune. And the keys stick.”

“I know. But that’s what I want. Nothing else.”

He’d placed a paternal hand on Phil’s shoulder, in the Turbine Hall. Phil can’t remember his name, something royal (George? Charles?), but he had been very kind, Phil remembers that much. He said, “they’re quite beautiful, though. I understand. We had someone come in and hand-paint them. They’re nice replicas, don’t you think?”

Phil had touched a fingertip to Girl With A Pearl Earring, where they’d found Esmee, where Dan, solemnly, looking two feet down into her tearful face, had said _everyone’s worth finding Esmee_. “Yes, they are.”

“Do you play?”

They arrived at Ophelia. The painted flowers; roses, pansies, daisies, poppies. Phil patted his hand, three times, to the billowing folds of her skirt. “No, I don’t.”

“Then, why a piano?”

Why indeed. What would Phil have done with the piano if Dan hadn’t come back? Where would he have put her, in his tiny flat? A room too small for her, never to be played, staring up at the same ceiling forever, covered in clutter while he tried to pretend she wasn’t there. Probably. He said, “it’s complicated.”

“And why this one? She’s a little depressing. There’s some lovely ones, over in the -”

“No, thank you. It has to be this one.” Phil looked down into Ophelia’s serene face. She looked straight past him.

(Dan had circled her, in the Camden flat living room, arm outstretched, terrified to approach. He progressed in tiny stages, lifting the lid, touching one key and then springing back as if the sound was unexpected. “A piano, you actually got me a piano.”

“I said I would.” Phil had wanted to cry, watching him, but happy tears - the kind that spring from a heart close to bursting. “I _promised_. First the piano, and then other stuff. Then everything. Remember?”

In a Nandos, of all places, drinking cheap rose while trying not to stare too much at this boy in his moth printed shirt, a boy who Phil already loved a little bit, more than a little bit, more than anything, more than everything. Dan, laughing and pink cheeked, as he said _really? We’re planning that far ahead? You’ve only just taken me to Nandos_ , and Phil, weakly, had replied _well first Nandos and then other stuff_. Everything. That’s a lot of stuff.

Dan, hand hovering somewhere over the bouquet of forget-me-nots in Ophelia’s fist, said, “I remember. Of course I remember.”)

If the Van Gogh, was a _you don’t have to come back_ then the piano, which Dan would have picked up and hugged to his chest, if he could, was an _I’m coming back. I’m coming back, wait for me_.

“It’s a present,” Phil told Charles/George/Whoever. “Or it’s a message. I don’t know.”

Charles or George wrinkled his nose, confused. “A message? Saying what?”

 _I’m coming back. Wait for me_.

~*~

_phil. if you’re reading this then things must have gone wrong. i’m hoping that you’re with louise, she promised she would bring you here. she has a code, and my passwords, to be able to transfer all the relevant things to you. the flat, mainly. i have some money, saved, in lots of different places, keep them separate. it looks less suspicious that way. louise will explain. is louise there? i hope she’s there._

__

__

_i’m sorry. if I’m writing this, if you’re reading this, i’m sorry. about my handwriting and also whatever it is that’s gone wrong. i’m trying to make it better. my handwriting, that is. i hope you didn’t see any of it. that would be the worst part, i think. if you saw it. if I saw you, seeing it. does that make sense? does any of this make sense? you were the only thing that ever did, to me. and I’m sorry._

~*~

Usually mornings are Phil rolling left to right, his side of the bed into Dan’s, adding another bow to whatever tangle of limbs they’ve become in the night; humming into the soft skin of Dan’s neck while Dan says _ow_ but not meaning it (because somewhere along the way Phil will have accidentally elbowed him. Lack of spatial awareness); usually they are Phil saying _morning_ and then smacking a loud kiss to Dan’s cheek, maybe right on his dimple, the dimple will be there because Dan will be smiling, running his hand through the mess that is Phil’s morning hair, saying _morning_ back, and Phil will think, sometimes say, _I’m glad you’re here_ , and Dan, amused, will say _where else would I be?_

This morning is Phil rolling left to right, his side of the bed into Dan’s, and then hitting nothingness, the coldness of mattress that hasn’t been slept on, hasn’t been slept _near_ because Phil had curled right up into his side, like he would be breaking some sort of rule by sleeping within centimetres of where Dan should be. He wakes up with a sigh, a gasp into consciousness so loud that Louise probably hears it, rooms away.

Dan’s sequined jacket, bizarrely, is in a ball under his pillow - he has a memory, a whisper of a _I should take this to bed with me, it smells like Dan_ , as he presses his face into the Paco Rabanne scented pillowcase.

The letter is still on his bedside table.

Louise had said _it’s not beyond help, it’s not beyond saving_ and Phil refuses to let it be so. It will be helped and it will be saved but, how. How? They’re on painting number nine and Phil, really, hasn’t come up with a plan for himself yet (does Boreas count? It surely can’t count, _the guy in the gallery who had a massive crush on you, pure luck_ ). Should he speak to Jack? Does he trust himself to speak to Jack?

(He doesn’t trust himself to speak to Jack.)

There’s no movement or sound anywhere else in the flat, which indicates that Mark is not back. There’s sun coming in through the window, people talking outside, a peaceful sort of morning that they would usually spend in bed, Phil trying to talk Dan into rearranging some of his lessons, Dan trying to talk Phil into going to a later seminar.

But this isn’t a usual morning. And it probably isn’t going to be a usual day, either.

~*~

Tyler is in the living room, lying on the sofa with his hands folded neatly under his cheek, eyes open but no glasses, covered in their awful scratchy blanket. He doesn’t look like he’s slept at all.

Phil says, “you came back” and the words come out as if being untangled from his mouth, slow and cracking.

Tyler blinks up at him. “Of course I did. You thought I’d left?”

“I don’t know,” Phil replies, honestly.

Tyler pulls himself into a sitting position, blanket catching around his legs, and says, “I’m sorry Phil. I knew something was wrong, they didn’t come out of the door they were supposed to, and they _always_ do. I couldn’t get online to anything. How did he know it was the Hayward? The tracker shouldn’t have kicked in for another ten minutes, they had plenty of time.”

 _Because I looked at it, he knew it was the Hayward because I looked at it_ Phil thinks, but doesn’t say. “Did you see it happen?”

Tyler nods, very slowly. “Would it make you feel better? If I told you about it?”

Phil thinks about Dan, the wrong side of the river, the final explosion before Phil’s heart gives up and breaks, pulling at his shirt collar. He says, “no, it wouldn’t make me feel better.”

“I spoke to Louise. She was still up when I got back. We talked about what happens next.” Tyler speaks slowly, as though the words are a series of traps that he’s trying to avoid. “She said -”

Phil, suddenly, remembering, says, “where’s _Mark_?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I’ve already been in the police records.” Tyler starts pulling at a loose thread on the blanket, with such force that it’ll probably unravel. “There’s two. PJ and Dan. No Mark. I didn’t see him. He didn’t come out with them.”

Phil sits, so distracted that he misses both sofa and coffee table, lands right on the floor at Tyler’s feet. “What else is in the records?”

“Nothing yet. Louise told you, didn’t she, they won’t find Lavender Mist. I _know_ PJ, that painting will be under the most obscure, random file that he could find in the archives. It’ll be months. A year even. They’re just two people in a gallery after closing time. Maybe a warning or something, but -”

“Then why are they still there? Why are they keeping them in?”

“The finale.” The thread, under Tyler’s attention, finally tears. He looks startled. “We know he called the police, we know he knew, _somehow_ , that they would be there. It all depends what he’s said. But there’s just Almond Blossoms left.”

“Not just Almond Blossoms. Modern Rome.”

Tyler frowns. “Modern Rome? The Turner? But, that’s back. _You_ returned that. The whole missed exit thing.”

“Jack knew where it was. He knew it was in the Sunley Room. It was last on his list. It’s in his gallery, it’s -”

Tyler says, “Phil.”

“ - the one, it’s the one that he took when Mark didn’t want him to, it’s the one that he thinks made Mark leave him, it’s everything, it’s the -”

“Phil, you need to breathe. Please.”

“It’s the big finale. And he already has it. It’s in the National, which he _runs_.” Phil runs out of air, the pulse in his throat fluttering and jumping. He’s aware of Tyler’s hand on his shoulder.

Tyler says, “c’mon, in and then out. In and then out.”

Phil, obediently, inhales and exhales.

Tyler nods, encouragingly, taps out a rhythm on the fabric of Phil’s hoodie. “In and out. There we go.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you? I’m not. Louise isn’t.”

Phil leans forward, so far that his forehead is nearly on Tyler’s knee. “Neither am I. That wasn’t true.”

Tyler says, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Something. Anything.”

“We don’t know what _he’s_ going to do.” Tyler reaches out. Phil instinctively takes his hand. Tyler clasps his fingers, once, and says, “no, Phil. My glasses. Behind you.”

Phil leans over to the coffee table and passes the aforementioned glasses to Tyler. “What do you mean, it all depends what he’s said?”

“They’re keeping them in for a reason,” Tyler pushes the glasses up his nose, blinks owlishly behind them. “You can only keep a person in for twenty four hours for questioning, and there’s been no crime. Nothing. Which makes me think……”

Phil is getting used to sentences trailing off, of having to work things out for himself, but his patience is starting to lack. “Makes you think what?”

“How would you get them kept in? How would you make sure of that?”

“I’d say something was going to happen. Before the time ran out.”

“And if you were Jack, what would that be?”

If I were Jack, Phil thinks, nonsensically, if I were Jack. If I were a version of myself, left behind by Dan, forgotten by everyone, waiting, waiting, _waiting_. I would do anything to make things different. All those months on his own, the melancholy clouding his mind, waiting at the Met, waiting at the National, wondering where Mark was, wondering why he’d been left behind. Messages in a paper Mark never read, signals that Mark purposely missed, trying to be kind.

But none of that is of any consequence at present. Any sympathy that Phil had for Jack, at any point, is now clinging by a whisp of thread (as thin as the one Tyler had just torn).

Phil, again, says, “where’s Mark?”

It wasn’t an answer to the question but somehow becomes one. Tyler nods. “I know. I know it’s all about Mark but I just can’t see that Jack would want anything to happen to him. We could check the flat downstairs?”

Phil mumbles, “we could.”

“I’ll go down, after we’ve spoken to Louise. We don’t have much time Phil, you have to understand that.”

“You texted me. Elysian Fields.”

A ghost of a smile flutters over Tyler’s face. “I did.”

“I looked back at him. He told me not to and I did.”

“Not your fault.” Tyler gives Phil’s shoulder a gentle shake. “It’s no one’s fault. None of it. But we need to come up with a plan soon. Twenty four hours is eight pm and it’s eight _am_ now. That’s not much time.”

~*~

_just keep a check on the kids for me, especially Colin. go to the recitals or whatever. they might end up with a mean teacher, like I had, so just keep checking they’re okay. you can keep the piano. or would you prefer not to? i don’t know if it would be too much. it would be like me keeping all of your houseplants. i don’t know. you can start dating again, i don’t mind if you start dating again, and don’t say that you won’t, someone like you deserves to be loved, to have someone with you. i can’t think of you on your own._

__

_you don’t have to stay in the flat. sell the flat, do whatever you want with it. i couldn’t be there without you, would you be able to be there without me? i remember what you said, on the Isle of Man, about the little house and the flowers, and the dog, and the gentle life, you can have that. nothing’s stopping you, was i stopping you? i’m not saying how much money it is, altogether, but it’s enough._

~*~

Louise has slept in her make-up (delicate flakes of mascara under her eyes and foundation streaked around her jawline), if she actually slept at all. The first thing she says is, “I’ve been in the police records all night.. They received two calls from an anonymous caller. One saying about the Hayward and then a second one that they haven’t noted. Both within thirty minutes of each other.”

“Both from Jack?” Tyler writes **two phone calls** on the moodboard, his drawing of Almond Blossoms pinned back up.

“They have to be. The logs are saved to the same case. The second one has to be the reason they’re keeping them in. You don’t just do that for finding three people in a gallery. Even if one of them’s wearing a dodgy wig.” Louise stops, corrects herself. “I mean two people, they found two people.”

Mark had not been in the flat downstairs. All three of them had gone down to look but the flat itself was exactly as it had been left the morning after Lady Agnew. The Missed Connections were neatly back in their envelope on the coffee table. Nothing had moved. Mark, who is incapable of walking into any room without knocking things out of place through the sheer volume of his presence, could not have been there, not even for a minute. Louise and Tyler were both worried, Phil could tell, but trying not to show it.

“Phil said that Jack knew where Modern Rome was left.” Tyler writes **knows about Modern Rome** as he speaks. “I don’t even think Almond Blossoms matters that much anymore.”

Phil stands from where he had been sitting, still on the floor, and (very politely) says, “excuse me, I’m just going to get some air.”

It takes him three goes to open the door to the balcony, his hands shaking and missing the handle. Tyler has to come up and let him out, to the dying begonias. His socked feet crunch over the scattered petals, now as brown and dry as a carpet of leaves.

He pinches his own wrist, hard, to say _come ON Phil_ , to wake himself up from whatever this awfulness is, so he can roll left to right and tell Dan _wow, I was having the weirdest dream, you’ll never guess_.

By the time Louise brings him a cup of tea he’s crying (still very politely, into the pocket of his clasped hands), small gasping sobs that are almost the start of a word. She says, “oh Phil.”

“I’m sorry. I should be helping you. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry.”

“Sorry.”

Louise opens her arms, the prelude to a hug, heavily signposted, but Phil shakes his head, takes half a step away. He says, “it matters. Almond Blossoms. Maybe not for _this_ , not anymore, but it matters. To me.”

“I know. I know it does.”

“Tyler says we don’t have much time.”

Louise almost smiles. “We have _no_ time. And no idea what’s happening.”

Inside the flat Phil hears the front door open and then close. He thinks _Dan_ (but it’s not, of course) and then _Mark_ , but it’s not Mark, he would hear him by now.

Louise reaches up, sleeve of her shell pink cardigan pulled over her hand, and wipes at the underneath of his eyes. It seems ineffective but Phil bows his head anyway, until she seems satisfied that he’s not crying anymore.

It takes a little while.

Louise says, “oh Phil” again and pats his arm.

The door to the balcony opens and Tyler appears. “You need to come back inside, guys. We can have teary balcony chats later.”

Phil says, “is someone here? I heard the -”

There’s the sound of the someone, the person in the living room, tapping three keys on the piano, four beats between each one. It sounds like the alarm at the National (and also the start of a Kanye West song).

“They shouldn’t be playing the piano,” Phil tells Tyler. “Tell them to stop playing the piano.”

Louise, hopefully, asks, “is it Mark?”

“That’s _Dan’s_ piano,” Phil says, nonsensically, and pushes past Tyler to get back into the flat, to the ringing of the top C. He announces, to the entire room, “stop playing the piano. You can’t be playing the piano.”

“Playing is a very generous term,” says a voice he’s heard before. A voice that once said _tell him I feel bad about this. Tell him I sounded regretful or something_. Someone who had promised Phil _I’m not taking him anywhere._

There, wearing an indigo blazer, looking like he’s just wandered in from a casual lunch in the City, with all the time in world, is Felix. He smiles, twirls his hand in front of his head and bows, maestro style.

~*~

_you can have a life without me, is what i’m saying. i don’t want to say it but i have to. go wherever you want. you could go back to manchester. we were happy, in manchester, weren’t we? i sometimes think it was the happiest i’ve ever been, like if someone asked me where i’d been the most happy i would say your flat in manchester. i’ve never told you, not with words anyway, but it makes me sad, that we can’t talk about it, that you don’t like to talk about it._

__

_once i snuck the photo of us on the manchester eye back into your frame (did you know they got rid of the eye? i was going to tell you but we don’t talk about manchester. do we.) it was there for two days before i took it out because i was worried it would upset you if you saw it. i think we’re both to blame, we both talk about dylan like he was a real person. he wasn’t, i’m too bad a liar to make any of my fake names real (isn’t that a contradiction. an art thief who’s a terrible liar). he wasn’t a real person. i’m him. when your mum talks about it sometimes i get jealous of myself. that’s weird right? i genuinely start wondering who this person was, who loved you and left, and then i realise it’s me._

~*~

Phil has never wanted to punch anyone, never _has_ punched anyone but he feels like he could do it now, could slam Ophelia's piano lid right in Felix’s fingers, could pick him up by the lapels of his ultraviolet blazer and throw him straight off their balcony.

Felix says, “Philip” in the half-American twang that Phil hates. A voice that constantly has a laugh in it. “Tyler and Louise. Wait, where’s Mark?”

Tyler stares at the overwhelming ugliness of Felix’s jacket. “We don’t know.”

“That’s careless of you.”

“We don’t know what happened.”

Felix continues to tap at the C key. “I’ll tell you what happened Tyler. Jack phoned the Art and Antiques department of the Met and said hey guys, top o’the morning to ya, hey some guys are trying to rob the Hayward right now, why don’t you take a look? And then, once they’ve found them, once they know the tip’s legit, he phones again, top o’the morning to ya, hey, those guys you found, they’re the real deal, they’re part of that ring you’re looking for, I can _prove_ it, so they think, we’ll wait. This guy obviously knows something, so where’s the proof? They wait for the next call. It’s coming, he’s setting things up, so -”

Louise says, “Felix. Seriously,” and gestures to Phil. “Have some -”

“Manners? Compassion? Have some _pity_?” Felix finally stops hitting the key, turns to look at Phil. “Philip. Philip. _Philip_.”

Phil can’t speak. He looks at Felix.

Felix says, “I’m sorry that this has happened.” His voice is suddenly full genuine accent; soft and clear. “I really am.”

Phil says, “well, it’s your fault”, in a far clearer tone that he was expecting.

“I suppose it is.” Felix looks over at the moodboard, which Tyler defensively stands in front of, arms folded. “I knew you’d save that one for last. I hoped you wouldn’t though.”

Phil follows his gaze to Almond Blossoms, or Tyler’s crude reimagining of it. “What do you mean?”

“I just sort of hoped that you would -”

“Stop talking in _riddles_ all the time,” Phil says. “Just stop. Take this seriously. I said to you - I said - and you -”

He has, somehow, crossed the room, his hand is fisted into Felix’s jacket, almost lifting him off the piano bench. Felix’s eyebrows are raised. He says, “you can hit me if you want, Phil. I deserve it. I know I do. You can all line up and do it. More than once.”

Phil lets go. “I’m not going to hit you.”

“I let them all down. All of them. And look at it, this _mess_.” Felix throws his arms out, as though his mistakes are a physical pile in front of him, like they could all look down and see them, scattered across the floor. “I just wanted things that were beautiful. I just wanted to own them, for a second. And now; there’s no plan, the list is over.”

Tyler says, “no. Almond Blossoms. We still have -”

“It was a swap job,” Felix says.

Tyler freezes, mouth still open. Louise puts her hand to her throat.

Phil says, “a what?”

No one answers.

“A _what_?”

Louise, finally, says, “a swap. Someone paints it, whatever is being taken, and then the original gets stolen but the fake gets put where it was. No one ever knows that there was a theft. It’s the perfect job but they’re hard to do, you have to find a really good artist, to fake it, but, it means…..what it means is -”

~*~

Melody, seeing Almond Blossoms for the first time, had said _it’s beautiful. I didn’t even know it had been stolen_.

Jack, in the college coffee shop, jealous of Phil being offered the best shortbread, had said _I was kinda expecting to talk you into something on Almond Blossoms, but -_

Dan, propping it on their mantlepiece, a private viewing for two, had said _I used to dream about stealing it for you. I didn’t know anyone had actually stolen it_ with real regret in his voice, that someone had dared to take this painting that he wanted to give to Phil.

Jack, wincing, knitted hat hiding his green hair, had said _I was going to stop at Almond Blossoms, with you, on my list. My order. That was going to be the one. It’s a bit different, so I was gonna -_ ”

The clues, again, all missed.

~*~

“What does it mean?”

Felix says, “it means, no one ever knows it was stolen. The fake hangs in whatever gallery and everyone carries on exactly as they were. Almond Blossoms is useless. Returning it, leaving it somewhere, achieves nothing. As far as everyone’s concerned it’s still in Amsterdam. Whatever plan you’ve got with it, it won’t work.”

Tyler, incredulous, says, “did Mark know this?”

Felix, in reply, says, “hey, are you okay?” which Phil thinks is odd until he realises it’s directed at him. “Phil? You look like you’re not breathing.”

Phil takes a gulp of air. “Who painted it?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Maybe you could get them, to say, that it’s real, that it’s -”

Tyler says, “it was Hector, I bet it was,” and then, eloquently, says, “ _fuck_.”

Felix still has his eyes fixed on Phil. “Do you need to go outside? Don’t faint.”

“You can’t just tell someone not to faint. It doesn’t work like that,” Phil tells him, but he has to steady himself, hand on the piano, right over Ophelia’s.

~*~

(Mark had not known, that it was a swap job. He wasn’t very observant, Jack had come to notice that. Or maybe he was observant but just chose to ignore the signs - the hearts in Jack’s eyes, on his sleeves, bursting right out of his chest every time Mark so much as looked at him.

He’d walked past Almond Blossoms, accidentally, and Mark had said, “no, here”, reached out and caught Jack’s hand, pulled him back. “This is it.”

It was a pretty painting, _is_ a pretty painting. Jack said, “oh”, and kept their hands connected.

Mark laughed and said, “whoops”, dropped his hand.

Jack laughed too (did it sound genuine? Because it wasn’t. He thought _no, no, take my hand again_ , wanted to walk past the painting over and over).

Felix had sent a telegram to the hotel, just to Jack, an old fashioned sort of thing that had delighted him, the motion of going to the front desk and having it presented in a little gold envelope. _SENDING PARCEL STOP NOT FOR M STOP YOU WILL UNDERSTAND_. The fake Almond Blossoms had arrived the following morning, neatly packaged.

“I love floral paintings,” Mark said. “I sorta want to leave this one here. You know?”

 _HE NEVER CHECKS STOP YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO STOP_.

“We could,” Jack told him. “We could leave it here. If you want.”

Mark’s face softened. “We can’t do that.”

“We could. Is that what you want to do? We could.”

Mark shook his head. “Felix would be pissed. We can’t throw a job just because I want to leave it there.”

I would do anything you wanted, Jack thought. Anything at all.

He’d gone to the Van Gogh museum the night before they’d planned, as standard. Came back with a neatly packaged parcel and shown Mark, by now completely unsurprised by Jack sneaking off, completely ignoring their plans to do things himself. Mark had touched his hand gently to the top corner of the painting and said, “I wish we hadn’t had to do that one.”

Mark had never looked, never read a single story about Almond Blossoms afterwards, he never did with any jobs, as though in denial that they’d happened, that he’d somehow been a part of it. And so he’d never known that it was a swap job.

Jack said, “I know,” and really meant “I love you.”)

~*~

Jack’s order - Impression, Sunrise. Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers. The Piano Lesson. Almond Blossoms. Lavender Mist. New York Movie. Lady Agnew. Boreas. Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino.

It went wrong after Paris, when Dan had found out, had sent him home while he went after Boreas ( _Dan, let me come with you. Please. Don’t go on your own_ , when Jack had given him the key but had expected him to wait ( _wait for me before you do anything wait for me before you go to iom_ ) when Phil hadn’t waited, he’d gone to the Isle of Man by himself and Dan had, of course, come to him and then the whole order had changed.

I was going to stop at Almond Blossoms, with you. I was gonna - what. Phil had interrupted him.

“He was gonna get you out of the way,” Felix supplies. “He would have sent you all the way to Amsterdam for a painting that wasn’t even missing. That’s what he meant. He never put you in any danger, you would have been away from all the drama and he could have carried on without you being there. Because, you’d served your purpose, I guess. By that point.”

Tyler says, “his purpose?”

_That’s the point. That’s precisely why you’re here, why I found you in the first place. To throw Dan off his game. Is that flattering? To know that you’re enough to affect someone that much? He’s so good at it, this job, however much you try to spin it, and one mention of you and he’s -_

“To confuse Dan,” Felix replies. “To muddle his mind and get him all unfocused. And Dan was never that focused anyway. The difficult ones were in the second half of his list, and it was all supposed to end with that _fucking_ Turner that I didn’t even want. No one would touch it.”

“The grand finale at the National,” Louise supplies. “With all of us.”

Felix, almost admiringly, says, “all those lists and this was the only one that really mattered. He would have known, that Mark would come here to help. And PJ. And Louise. And Tyler. Everyone else didn’t matter. It was all to make it a big deal, get everyone running around and separated. We’ve all been so fucking _stupid_.”

“We haven’t _all_ been.” Tyler nods his head, amazingly, towards Phil.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” Felix says. “I never take it seriously, I never _took_ it seriously, because it always went awesomely. Never any issues. And now, he’s completely caught us out. We’ve only got a few hours, and -”

Phil, again, fixated on the detail like it’s the only thing that could possibly help, asks, “who painted it? The fake Almond Blossoms?”

“I have a guy, just one, who does these types of jobs. Not many, because he’s slow and paints like ten to make sure they’re perfect. He paints, like, professionally too, he did the pianos, in the Tate, that’s how I knew -”

Tyler says, “Hector” and Phil says, “wait, the pianos?”

“Of course Hector. Who else would it be? But it’s not important, he just painted the thing and gave it to me.” Felix sighs, turns to Phil. “You know him. Like, without knowing that you know him.”

“What?”

“This building,” Felix says. “I own it all, every flat except this one now, they’re safe houses, and hideouts, and only two flats that people actually _live_ in, which probably suits -”

“The guy downstairs?” Phil says. The only neighbour they have, the neighbour they’ve barely spoken to. “The one with the dog?”

Felix nods. “Hector.”

“I need to speak to him.”

“You don’t need to speak to him, Philip. You need, you _all_ need, to be getting the fuck out of here. Why are you all here? Sitting around a moodboard, it’s over. Do you need money for tickets or anything? I brought stuff, I thought bank transfers weren’t a great idea so -”

“It’s not over,” Phil says. “And the more that we stand here while you feel sorry for yourself is just more time that we’re wasting.”

Felix leaves several envelopes, stuffed with banknotes, one for each of them (with, optimistically, Dan, PJ and Mark included). He stands near the mirror in their hallway, tidying his jacket, obviously delaying his departure.

Phil says, “you’re leaving.”

Felix looks at his own reflection, rather than at Phil, and says, “I’m a complete coward, Philip, you should have guessed that by now. Why else would I run a ring of people all doing things that I don’t have the balls to do myself? Of course I’m leaving.”

“Of course you are,” Phil tells him.

Felix says, “I really am sorry. You don’t believe me, I know you don’t, but - if you ever need anything, ever, you can call me. You know that. I’ll help with anything.”

“Except this.”

Felix sighs. “Like I said, I’m a complete coward. This shouldn’t be a surprise. I’d be no help.”

“And so you’re leaving.”

“I am,” Felix says. And does.

~*~

_actually, to all of these things, never tell me about it. don’t visit me, or write to me, or anything. i couldn’t take it, you constantly walking away from me. but i know you’ll visit anyway so why am i saying this. how could i cope with the lack of you. it didn’t go well last time. just if you’re dating someone, never tell me. especially if it’s connor, in my head it’s connor. i remember the way he looked at you._

_this letter is going all over the place, i’m sorry. you know me, that’s how i am. can’t stick to the order. what i mean to say is; louise will sort the transfers. it’s yours, it’s all for you, everything always was. and then, i don’t know, go and be happy. you deserve to be happy, no one has ever deserved to happy as much as you. do you know how happy you made me? of course you do, we never shut up about it. if this has happened, whatever it is, then i’m glad, for however long, that i got to be with you._

~*~

Hector is tall and fair, with a kind face that immediately looks startled to see Phil standing at his door. The dog, covered in mud, looks slightly happier to see him. Hector has his front door half open, dog about to follow him in, lead still in his hand.

Phil, for once in his life, does not kneel down to pet the dog. “Hector.”

Hector blinks. “Dan?”

“No, I’m Phil. We live upstairs.”

“I know.” Hector is standing, purposely, blocking the inside of his flat from view. “Can I help you with -”

“You painted the pianos, in the exhibit at the Tate.”

Hector raises his eyebrow. “Yes, I did.”

“You painted other stuff too. Reproductions.”

Hector, politely, says, “possibly. Is there something you want to ask me?”

“You work for Felix. Sometimes.”

Hector raises his eyebrows right into the sweep of hair at his forehead. “I’m sorry?”

“I need your help with something. Please.”

“I don’t entirely know what you’re -”

“How many Almond Blossoms did you paint?”

Hector is momentarily speechless. He, finally, manages to say, “ _Almond Blossoms_?”

“You painted it for Mark.”

“No,” Hector shakes his head. “Mark didn’t know.”

“For Jack, then.”

Hector says, “who _are_ you?”

“I’m just me,” Phil says, desperately. “Phil. I’ve lived in the flat above you for months. Your dog once got into our flat. It really is just me. But I need your help.”

“With _what_?”

Phil repeats, “how many Almond Blossoms did you paint?”

Hector holds up his hands. “Look, I help out from time to time. I don’t really get -”

“Please.”

“I need to talk to Felix,” Hector says, still completely polite. “Excuse me.”

He closes the door, leaving both Phil and the dog out in the hallway. Phil finally gets onto his knees and gathers him into his arms (is it a him? He’s not sure), presses his face into the muddy fur.

“I drew you,” he tells the dog. “For Dan. He loved it so much that he stopped playing. You got into our flat once, do you remember?”

The dog, getting dirty pawprints all over Phil’s jeans, wags his tail so hard that his entire tiny body shakes.

“Is that a yes?” Phil scratches behind his ears. “We should get a dog. When Dan’s back. We’ll get one. I -”

Above him Hector clears his throat.

Phil looks up.

Hector says “eight. I painted eight. Including the one that’s in the gallery now. That one was the best one, the others are pretty shitty. Do you want to come in?”

The living room of Hector’s flat is the same size as theirs, but with no balcony. It’s covered, every available wall space, table space, shelf space, with paintings. Phil recognises another Edward Hopper, one from the Tate, a few Picassos, Liberty Leading The People (which had hung above his French teacher’s desk, for some bizarre reason).

“Are any of these real?” Phil says.

Hector laughs, or rather he just exclaims the word “ha!” loudly. “Nope. All copies. I’m not entirely happy with some of them, but I try a few and the best one goes into the swap, normally. Except Felix doesn’t think he’ll have much use for them now.” He gestures, not to a chair but to the room in general, “sit down.”

Phil sits in the nearest arm chair, looking directly at a painting of a man stood on what looks like a mountaintop, surrounded by cloud. It looks calming. The man, even from his back, looks determined. The dog clambers into his lap.

Hector says, “tea?”

Phil, in reply, says, “do you still have them? The seven that are left?”

Hector frowns as if trying to get back to where they were in the conversation. He says, “Almond Blossoms. I do. But like I said, they’re the leftovers, they’re not really that good. I try and paint a few of each one, then Felix picks the -”

“You painted the pianos. At the Tate.”

“Yes. But those I did on the spot, there and then. There’s mistakes, but then they’re not supposed to be passed off as the real thing.”

“We’ve got one of them.”

Hector smiles, the first time he hasn’t had a nervous look on his face since Phil knocked on his door. It’s a serene, placid sort of smile. “So you’re the person with Ophelia. I was proud of that one.”

“I asked for it, as a reward. And also as a present.”

Most people would follow that up with ‘really, a reward for what?’ Hector does not. “That one in particular? It’s sad though, I always thought. All the flowers.”

Phil, confused and almost offended, says, “flowers aren’t sad.”

“Those ones are. All the pansies mean love in vain. The daisies are forsaken love. The poppies I don’t remember but probably something to do with love not coming back.” Hector trails off as if in reply to the look on Phil’s face. “Ha. Sorry.”

Phil, not even sure why, says, “what do begonias mean?”

“Begonias? Um, warnings of future misfortunes and challenges. I think.”

Phil almost laughs. All the clues missed again, including the ones on his own balcony. “I need the seven Almond Blossoms. The ones you have.”

Hector says, “Felix told me what happened. A little of it. If you’re planning to use them as a diversion or something then you should know -”

“I need them.” Phil gently places the dog on the floor and stands. “There’s not much time. I need all of them.” He remembers his manners and adds, “please.”

He follows Hector to one of the guest bedrooms, the smaller one. It’s filled with Almond Blossoms, identical canvases, propped on every surface in the room. All looking exactly like the real thing (Phil would know). Hector gives an apologetic little shrug, “like I said….”

“They look like the real thing.”

Hector tips the nearest canvas over. “I put red spots, in the top right corner, on the back of all my copies. Just to help if you’ve got the original. So you can make sure you don’t accidentally take it with you or leave it anywhere.”

Phil says, “do you need them back?”

Hector shrugs. “What use are they? The jobs are over. And if I ever feel the need for a Van Gogh I’ll just paint one myself.”

~*~

Phil returns with an armful of Almond Blossoms. One, he notices, is slightly messier than the rest, possibly Hector’s first attempt. The petals look smudged, one of the branches is completely bare.

Tyler, at the moodboard, says, “this is part of the plan?”

“It’s your part,” Phil says. “The two of you”

Louise instantly replies, “where are you in this?”

Phil clears his throat and, for the first time in hours, is able to speak without sounding short of breath. “I’m going to tell you the plan. The whole plan. You can tell me if there’s things I could improve, or things that aren’t going to work, but you can’t tell me not to do it.”

“You’re talking like it’s gonna be just you.” Tyler looks at the pile of paintings. “Seven for us and then, what, the real one for you?”

Phil repeats, “just tell me if there’s things that I can improve. There’s no time to get into arguments about it. You guys can’t be there. If it goes wrong I want you to already be somewhere you can be safe, or on your way there.”

Tyler, straight into _the escape stuff_ , as always, says, “we all need to pack a suitcase. I’ll take them to the left luggage at Paddington. Even if it goes well we still need to leave, at least for a week or so. I’ll pack for PJ and Mark.”

“We know that they can only keep them until 8pm,” Louise says. “They’ve kept them all day for a reason. You’d only do that if you know something’s happening later.”

“Or if you’ve been told something’s happening later,” Tyler supplies. “A Modern Rome kinda something.”

“If he gave an anonymous tip for them to go to the Hayward then he could quite easily give an anonymous tip for something else, tonight.”

Tyler taps his hand to **The National** , a new addition to the moodboard. “There’s no way he could have taken Modern Rome out of the gallery. Jack’s good but not that good. Not with his job. It’s a huge painting and people know him. It’s either still in the Sunley Room or his office. Has to be. Then, I don’t know, he phones the police, same anonymous caller from the night before, they trust him because the tip from last night seems to be legit, and he says hey, those guys you’ve got in, they’re part of an art thief ring, I can prove it. And, I mean, how do you prove an art theft?”

“You show them a stolen painting,” Louise says. “A famous one.”

“And all of the other proof that he’d have. From his job. The access to the cameras. The witnesses. He knows everything.”

Phil puts his hand up.

“Phil,” Louise says, again. “You don’t have to put your hand up. Really.”

Phil clears his throat and says, “everything about _you_. He doesn’t know everything about me.”

“So,” Tyler folds his arms. “The plan.”

“We need to get to 8pm with nothing happening, if possible. That’s the first thing. So, I thought, if they’re looking for a painting then we could leave a few around for them and let them know. Take a few Almond Blossoms each and just -”

“Find them.” Tyler nods, understanding instantly. “And give a polite call, just to say so.”

“There’s seven. You can do one an hour and then wait in Paddington.”

“But where are _you_?” Louise shakes her head. “Don’t say in the National.”

Phil says, “in the National.”

“ _No_ Phil.”

“It has to get finished.”

“So what’s the plan there exactly?”

Here, in reality, is where the plan stumbles a little. Phil knows that he has to get Almond Blossoms away from Melody, has to return it somehow, regardless of the circumstances it still deserves to be _returned_ ; he also knows that he needs to get Modern Rome out of the Sunley Room, somehow. If that’s even where Modern Rome is. He also needs to destroy whatever it is that Jack has, evidence wise, on anyone (but what would that be).

“I have a plan,” he says, confidently.

“Oh wow, thanks.” Tyler raises his eyebrows. “That’s reassuring.”

“It makes sense,” Phil says. “You know it does. It gets us time and someone has to go to the National, you _know_ that. We can’t avoid it. And it should be me. I understand him. He talks to me.”

Tyler throws his hands up in surrender. Louise shakes her head. Neither of them say anything or offer any protest, Phil knows that he’s won. If this is a thing for him to win, that is.

“If it goes wrong then you’re in Paddington, with your suitcases. You can go anywhere from there. You know that.”

“We won’t be going anywhere because Dan will straight up murder us if anything goes wrong with you.” Tyler sighs. “What are we supposed to say to him, if they get released and then you’re not there?”

“I’ll be there.”

“And Paddington Station will be the Elysian Fields?” Tyler says. “What if you’re not there, what do we say? What do I tell him?”

“Tell him -” Phil stops, has to blink very rapidly. Tell him what? Tell him I love him, tell him I should never have tried to pretend this part of his life didn’t exist, tell him that everything, all of this, was only ever for him.

“Tell him I read his letter.”

~*~

_but then i am who i am and you love me. and if i’ve learnt anything over the past few months it’s that you don’t give up very easily on the people you love. where are you reading this? are you on a ferry to the isle of man? in a hotel? (i told louise to take you to a hotel). or are you in our flat, planning how to get me back. i hope it’s the first or second, but i know it’s probably the last. you’re probably on the balcony, aren’t you. thinking._

Phil, on the balcony, thinking, watches as a raindrop falls onto the word _back_ and smudges it.

Not a raindrop actually, a tear. He rubs at his eyes.

~*~

_i wanted to be a good person. you made me want to be one. you were the first thing i didn’t want to lose. you saved me from something i thought i couldn’t be saved from, and even if i say I rescued myself that’s not entirely 100% accurate. if anyone rescued me then it was you. if anyone have rescued me, if anyone could have pulled me into normality, then it would have been you._

_don’t be too hard on yourself. i know you will. none of this is your fault, none of it could have been stopped. just know that you made me happy. so happy. i never wanted to be anywhere that you weren’t but sometimes things don’t work out. i wish i wish i wish that it had been different. but it’s not. it is what it is. i am who i am and you love me. i could never have wanted anymore than that. I never deserved anything more than that (if i ever deserved it in the first place)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Ophelia actually lives in the Tate Britain (the sister gallery of the Tate Modern, which we all know well from the last fic!). She has, to my knowledge, never been painted onto a piano. 
> 
> \- The painting Phil sees in Hector’s flat is [Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog](http://www.artble.com/imgs/3/f/4/534414/wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg) by Caspar David Friedrich. It’s also the inspiration for the cover of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is neat :)
> 
> \- I wish I could claim to have known about the meaning of begonias all along but I only found that out today (but let’s pretend that was great symbolism on my part!!) 
> 
> \- shout out to How To Steal A Million for inspiring the forgery in this chapter. 
> 
> (also the Met really does have an Fine Art and Antiques department. I should probably apply for a job there after this.)


	12. 9. almond blossoms - vincent van gogh

Phil first saw Dan at a tiny museum in Manchester. And then, later, pretended that he hadn’t; had edited it out and clipped in a whole new start. A Phil first saw Dan across the marble entrance hall of the Tate start, a backstory that had gained a life of its own, a cheerful, normal meet-cute that Phil had wanted so badly to have been real. Or, at least, he’d _thought_ he wanted to be real. He had lied to his family, his friends, panicked any time that he or Dan had forgotten, given his ex-boyfriend who was actually his current boyfriend a terrible cover story which made no sense.

He can’t quite remember now why it had been so important to him, why all the photos (except one) of Dan in Manchester are still in a case at the bottom of his wardrobe. Why the words _let’s never talk about it again_ had even come out of his mouth.

~*~

**1pm.**

“Oh hello there Sir, yes, I just wanted to report, I’m not even sure if I need to report it really but you know, better to be safe with everything that’s going on! I’ve found a painting, it’s - no I don’t recognise it, it looks just like a tree branch. Not that impressive but what do I know? Yes, it’s a blue background. Does it look like who? Oh, I don’t know who that is. Will you come and collect it? It’s making my petunias look very cluttered. Thank you dear. Toodle-pip.”

Phil says, “toodle-pip?”

Tyler shrugs. “That’s how you guys talk, right?”

Louise says, “ _Tyler_ , we can’t make these complicated. Now you have to actually find a pile of petunias to leave it in.”

Louise has three Almond Blossoms, Tyler has the other four. Phil, soon, will have one, the real one, the final one, collected from Melody’s house. It’s a small, compact little painting that’s easy to transport, thankfully.

Louise and Tyler are wearing their plainest clothes, or as plain as either of them get; Phil is wearing his brightest, ocean coloured, blue shirt, had taken as much time getting ready as if he was going on a date, straightening and re-straightening his hair. Louise had opened her mouth to protest but then shaken her head, as if at herself, because she knew. She understood.

Tyler says, “an hour apart. That was 1pm, so that takes us to 7pm, which still should be enough of a delay, right? With the final one?”

“I don’t know.” Phil tidies the collar of his shirt. “I don’t know how long a delay we need.”

“How long a delay _you_ need,” Tyler corrects.

Louise leans over and starts trying to sort out Phil’s fringe. She says, “it closes at 6. You know I can’t do anything about the alarms, with a system that size, it’s too much. I’m good but I’m not that good.”

Tyler, slowly, says, “they have more than one basement, okay? But the basements are all on the same side of the building. If you end up in one then get out of a window, you’ll come out on the same street you did before, remember? There’s one that’s like four levels, just keep going down the stairs. They all have windows. Then get to the Square, as soon as you can, there’s always crowds.”

“Okay.”

“And -” Tyler stops, looks at Louise and swallows audibly. “And if it goes wrong, if you can get yourself out of there, then do it, okay? Don’t worry about us. I mean, we had a good run. It’s better if you’re safe. It’s fairer.”

“Fairer?”

“That’s what I said.” Tyler nods and Louise does too, in agreement. “I’ve been doing this a while. I don’t even remember how many things I’ve stolen. If it happens, it happens. But you don’t deserve it.”

~*~

The morning after, on the balcony with the begonias, blooming and bright warnings of future misfortunes, Phil trying to lean and look at them properly but not too far as Dan had their little fingers hooked together, as he did most of the time in those afterwards days. The days after Phil Came Back.

“I want to tell you about the plan, but that would have -”

“It’s best you didn’t. I’m a terrible actor and would have had too much time to think about it.”

“And to worry?”

“I wouldn’t have worried. Not about myself. When I saw the Van Gogh I couldn’t believe you’d done it. But then it made sense, all the putting it right stuff. I wanted to come to wherever you’d gone and tell you what an idiot you were. But also that I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Well, that’s okay then. Would have been awkward if it was just me. Now, let’s never talk about this again.”

Dan had frowned. Remembering this, looking at it again, Phil remembers. Dan had frowned, the smallest reappearance of that crease between his eyebrows. He said, “okay. We can do that. Okay,” and then Phil had pulled him closer by their interlocked fingers, momentum so unexpectedly quick that he ended up kissing Dan somewhere above his ear rather than where he actually wanted to.

Phil wants to reach into the memory and shake his past self. To rewind and edit a whole new conversation in, to have present Phil reply as he should have done in the first place. Which would be to say:

“Well, that’s okay then. Would have been awkward if it was just me. And tell me about it. All of it. Because it’s part of you and I love you. Show that part to me, show all the parts, even the really awful ones. Tell me everything. When I first saw you I wanted to know everything about you. And I meant it. I love you for every awkward, beautiful part that you are.”

Maybe Dan would still have frowned. But he would have smiled afterwards. And Phil would have pulled him closer, via linked fingers, and would have said, “tell me now” right into the bow of Dan’s lips.

And Phil would have put all their Manchester photos back up, would have told his mother, staring out at the rock garden, “no, we met in the Manchester gallery”, he would never see Dan blush and stammer when someone asked him how he knew so much about art, there would be no Dylan with his baby pandas; and it probably wouldn’t have resolved _this_ in the long-run but at least Dan would never have thought it was something Phil was, in some way, ashamed or scared of.

And he could have said, “I knew you’d like it, I used to dream about stealing it for you,” right at the beginning, the declaration that it was meant as, not mumbled under a whisper in front of a painting in their flat, like Phil would somehow be insulted by the notion.

Looking at Almond Blossoms now, at the whole pile of them, Phil has no idea what he did to be loved so much, to have someone love him enough to want to give him this painting.

~*~

Tyler says, “just remember. You can’t save everyone. If it comes to it. You can’t save him.”

Phil says, “what do you mean?” but he knows exactly.

Tyler still explains. “I mean, if there’s a choice. If it comes down to you having to give him up to save yourself. Don’t be a hero here. Some people just can’t be….. you know.”

“Do you want to run through what you’re going to do once you’re there?” Louise asks. She’s pale, make-up almost standing off her skin, too bright. “I’d feel better if you did.”

“That would make me overthink it,” Phil says, an easy lie. He still doesn’t know what to say, what to do, beyond get Dan back.

“I don’t feel good about it,” Louise tells him, not for the first time. “This whole thing. We should be coming with you.”

The moodboard has been taken down, neatly broken into pieces and stowed away into their attic. Tyler had said, “just in case. You know. It looks suspicious. If, uh, you know - we don’t come back here. For whatever reason.”

( _come home with me_. Dan, running his hand over Phil’s shirt collar, gilt badge with his name on it. _To my actual home, I have one of those now._ )

“You think we can’t come back?”

Tyler shifts, one foot to the other. “Maybe not.”

( _I own this building_. Felix, neon blazer clutched in Phil’s fists. _I own it all._ )

Phil says, “maybe that’s not so bad.”

He’s wearing the blue shirt because it’s Dan’s favourite, Dan can’t even see it in Phil’s wardrobe without sighing and saying, “I love that colour on you,” or, “just wear blue forever, please.” He had stared at himself in the mirror, buttoning it up and tidying his hair, thinking he could be arrested in this shirt. He could get Dan back in this shirt. He _will_ get Dan back in this shirt and Dan will smile, both dimples, and say, “never wear any colour other than blue. Ever again.”

Louise says, “are you ready Phil?” in a tone that implies that she is not.

~*~

They all go to Paddington, to four different left luggage stations because apparently that’s important. Phil had, very neatly and very methodically, packed a bag for Dan containing all of his favourite (identical) black sweaters, his comfiest jeans, the pillow from his side of their bed, all of the cards from the piano school children.

(He’d packed a bag for himself too. Not as neatly and nowhere near as methodically. He’d done it in a daze, like it was important that all of Dan’s things should be carefully selected and folded but it didn’t really matter if Phil only had one jumper to last him a week. He didn’t really need anything else because by then he would have Dan. Dan would be back.)

“Okay.” Tyler stows away the luggage slips for himself and PJ. “Okay.”

Louise has two slips too. She zips them into a little compartment in her handbag. She says, “one’s for Mark. Just in case.”

“We need to find some petunias,” Tyler tells her. He pats Phil’s cheek, twice, with his open palm, and then stops, awkwardly cupping Phil’s face in his hand. “Be safe. Come back here. Remember what I said, everything I said.”

Louise says, “I bought your tickets,” followed by a tiny sob that she delicately subdues with her hand. “All the way to the Isle of Man. I thought that’s where you would want to go. I put them in your bag. Oh _Phil_.”

Phil says, “stop, please”, before she even starts, because if she cries he might cry and it would be a miracle really if he has any tears left.

~*~

On the ice outside their flat, weeks ago, Dan had said, “I know this week has been hard but I think it’s harder because we never talk about it,” hands clutched into Phil’s thick winter coat because he’d thought, understandably, that Phil was close to falling over.

Phil, feet slipping, clutching right back even though he was angry, said, “I don’t _want_ to talk about it,” and felt Dan flinch, a full body shudder, like Phil had pressed into his chest and chipped a segment from his heart.

Another thing that he shouldn’t have said. Another thing that he wants to rewind, to reverse the words back into his mouth.

“Did you hear,” someone on the seats in front of him on the Tube says, to the person next to them, “about the Hayward last night? Very confusing. It took me forever to get into the theatre.”

“They said nothing’s stolen though? It’s probably just tourists or something, getting lost. We were there last week, that tunnel of light thing is pretty confusing.”

Dan, lights bouncing off the ridiculous silver blond wig, in a pretty confusing tunnel, giving Phil a very serious look and saying _I told you this was an awful idea_.

“But then why haven’t they released them? Sounds suspect to me.”

He gets off two stops early, has to run into the toilets at Gloucester Road and lean his forehead against the cool surface of a (not particularly clean) mirror, breathes in and out. It’s difficult without Tyler or Louise to count with him but he watches his breath flare against the glass on each exhale and manages, somehow.

~*~

In Belgravia, Melody says, “where’s Dan?” brightly, like Phil is going to say _oh, just out_ _off doing Dan things in his Dan world_.

Phil, trying to act like nothing’s wrong in any way, leaning casually on the table in the second kitchen, doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t trust his voice.

That’s enough for Melody. She says, “oh. Oh no.”

“I need Almond Blossoms,” Phil says. “It’s the last one. Then we don’t need to bother you anymore.”

“No. Bother me. Please. As much as you like.”

She tries to hug him, halfway down the stairs to the painting, a very Melody-type hug which is all awkward elbows, catching him unawares so he stumbles into the wall. He clings back regardless, trying very hard to not cry and also not to trip over Claude, skipping around under his feet.

“I took it off the wall so it was ready,” Melody half says-half wails. “I can’t believe this. It wasn’t the Hayward, was it? I saw something on the news this morning.”

Phil doesn’t answer. He actually wants to this time but the words are stuck. Almond Blossoms, the real Almond Blossoms, stands peacefully under Impression, Sunrise, catching some of the light from the window above.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I said I had a plan. And I don’t, there is no plan. The plan stops,” he gestures to the painting, “here. I don’t have a plan after this.”

~*~

**2pm.**

“Hello? Yes, I don’t know if this is the right number or not but I wanted to report something. I don’t know if you’d class it as lost property or not but it looks valuable. I don’t - I’m sorry? No, it’s a painting. I don’t know, maybe like flowers or something? I just sat down for coffee and here it is. Will you send someone? I’m afraid that it might get damaged. Thanks.”

~*~

Phil, in Trafalgar Square, probably breaking all sorts of rules in his bright shirt, appearing in the background of however many tourist photos, arm wrapped around Almond Blossoms, now in a leather bag that Melody had found. It’s not a very natural way to hold a bag, it gets some interested looks, like there’s a puppy or a kitten or something equally adorable in the bag that he wants to protect.

The bag had probably belonged to her father, Melody said. She’d said a lot, as he was leaving, chattering away.

She’d eventually said, “I knew something was wrong. Because he phoned me.”

Phil, halfway out the door, spun to face her. “Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“He _phoned_ you.” Phil’s patience, normally never-ending, normally the patience of a whole host of saints, rattled. “And you’re only mentioning this now. As I’m leaving.”

“He didn’t say much. Just that he was sorry.”

“For what? For _this_?”

“No,” Melody pointed to herself. “For this.”

He can’t ask anyone what to do. It’s too risky to phone Tyler or Louise. Pointless to phone Felix, who had left. Impossible to phone Mark, who was nowhere to be found. The only job he was truly, one hundred percent, doing on his own. With no guidance and no one expecting him.

He said, “did he tell you?” and then had to say, “Melody?” when she wouldn’t look at him. “Did he tell you I was coming? That first time?”

She gave him a sad look. “I didn’t phone the police. I let you right into my house.”

“That’s not an answer,” he said, but it was.

“He told me. He phoned me and I thought it was to say that he was coming back but it wasn’t, it was just the painting. He described you and said that you were harmless and that I shouldn’t call anyone or be scared of you.”

Phil said, “that’s me. Harmless and nothing to be scared of.”

Should he be scared? He doesn’t know. Jack has never shown any indication that he wants Phil caught, but that could change, he supposes. He’s not sure. He’s not sure about much, at present, beyond the one key, fundamental thing.

~*~

The four, key, fundamental things.

1\. He loves Dan. Dan’s past does not matter, not anymore. It should never have mattered in the first place. He loves him. 2\. He is happiest when he’s around Dan. 3\. He doesn’t want to be anywhere Dan is not. 4\. He will get Dan back.

~*~

He buys his ticket, a full day pass, tags onto a guided tour, like Dan had done, the last time. The tour guide is saying, “ - at the tragic end of the story Orpheus loses Eurydice forever when he turns to look at her before reaching the land of the living.”

In the painting Orpheus is holding a lyre in one hand, Eurydice’s wrist with the other. He is looking straight ahead. They’re in a field of green. It looks peaceful, and safe. Phil has to cover a sob with a cough because of course it would be _this_ painting. He’s not sure if this painting is Elysian Fields or not. He hopes that it is.

Someone next to him, loud and cheerful, a voice Phil would instantly recognise if he was paying attention, says, “but they find each other again right?”

“In some versions, yes.”

Mark, next to him, says, “in this version,” right into Phil’s ear.

Phil jumps around two inches off the ground and squawks (there’s really no other word for the noise that comes out of his mouth). He almost says _Mark!_ but this probably breaks yet more thief rules so he settles for just staring at Mark instead. Mark, still in his tourist outfit from the Hayward job, three rucksacks and a camera.

Mark says, “hello,” as nonchalantly as he can muster. “Have you seen the Renoirs? They’re really something.”

Phil says, “what?”

Mark, patiently, repeats, “the Renoirs. They’re really something.”

“You want to look at the Renoirs?”

Mark says, “sure!” like it had been Phil’s idea all along. “C’mon, this way.”

He clasps a hand to Phil’s elbow and leads him out of Gallery A, hitting him with one of the rucksacks (which feel heavier than they had on the original job) on every step, up the main stairs and right - to the quietest part of the gallery. The Renoir room is small, lots of paintings of women with giant hats sitting at dressing tables, and also empty.

Mark turns to face Phil. Phil instantly punches him in the arm.

Mark says, “hey!” even though it couldn’t have hurt. His biceps are solid concrete.

“Where have you _been_?”

Mark ignores the question. “What are you doing?”

“Where did you _go_?”

“Why are you here?”

Phil says, “Mark. You know what happened, right? You must -”

“I know, I _know_ , I’m not that terrible at this. I’ve been - all night, I’ve been trying to find him, to talk to him. I couldn’t face it, I couldn’t face -”

“How did you get out? If they.” Phil stops. He can’t, somehow, say the word _caught_. He tries again. “If they. If Dan. How did you -”

“He let me go,” Mark says, and it’s so obvious. “I didn’t realise. I thought he was Tyler, from far away, when the alarms started, and he let me out, but not the others. I couldn’t go back, I wanted to -”

“You should have come back to the flat,” Phil pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, holds his fingers there. “We’ve been worried about you.”

“I couldn’t. How could I? I didn’t want to see you, how could I _see_ you? Why are you _here_?”

“Why do you think?” Phil holds up the satchel. “What did you think I was going to do?”

Mark stares at the bag and says, “Almond Blossoms.”

“It was a swap job.”

Mark looks startled. “No, it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been.”

Phil has no patience, can’t even find the energy to explain. “And Modern Rome is still here.”

“I know. He told me.”

~*~

(Mark, outside the Hayward, blinking rapidly like he could somehow blink Jack from existence and magic Tyler there instead, said, “I can’t believe you.”

Jack had his hand on Mark’s shoulder. He was staring at it, like he couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to reach out and put his hand there. He said, “you can’t believe me?”

“What have you done?” “What I said I would do.” Jack finally flicks his eyes to Mark’s. “What I said all along.”

“But not me?”

“No, not you.”

Mark said, “why? They never did anything to you. If anyone _did_ anything to you, it was me. And they’ll never find the Pollock, not for months, what does this achieve?”

“The Pollock is irrelevant. I still have the big one. The Turner. I still have all the evidence, months of collecting, of watching, witness accounts, videos, recordings, the trackers from the paintings, every single -”

“What are you even trying to _do_?”

Jack squeezed Mark’s shoulder. Only once, curled his fingers right on the curve to Mark’s neck and sighed like he’d waiting lifetimes to do just that. “Have you ever been heartbroken, Mark?”)

~*~

The gallery is pretty busy. Getting to the Sunley Room is difficult, with Mark clattering his bags against every available object and Phil nervously wringing his hands.

“Drop one of the bags,” he says, after Mark hits him on the knee for the fifth time. They’re in the Spain room, trying to wait for a quiet moment. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Mark says. “Not yet.” When Phil stares at him he says, or tries to whisper, “equipment. To stop the cameras and the alarms, for a while. I’m gonna set you up in one of the closets, I’ll show you how to -”

Phil says, “no. I’m doing this. I’m not hiding in a cupboard. You can hide in a cupboard. It’s your equipment.”

Mark doesn’t say _are you serious_ or _Phil, that’s a terrible idea_ or any variation on anything Tyler and Louise had said, before they’d given in. He gives Phil a long look, considering, and says, “there’s no way we can move it. The painting. There’s just no way. It’s huge. You remember.”

“I’m not going to move it.”

“But -”

“He told you he had evidence, video clips and recordings and -”

“Yes.”

“Are you on them?”

~*~

(“Have you ever been heartbroken, Mark?”

Mark said, honestly, “no. I haven’t.”

“I have. I _am_. It makes you irrational, it makes you think, makes you wonder what you could have done differently.”

“This isn’t -”

“I loved you. If there’s any debate left on that front. I loved you the moment I saw you.”

Mark said, “why didn’t you _say_?”

“I did. I was always saying it. You just never noticed.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I was saving it. For a day in the future, when I was happy, when we were happy, and I could have said, hey, remember those paintings you wanted, and you would have been so pleased, and you would of -”

”Loved you?”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” Mark said. “I don’t. And I’m not apologising for that fact, Jack.”

“My name isn’t Jack.”)

~*~

Phil says, “you are.”

“It was kind of egotistical of me to think that I wouldn’t be,” Mark observes, drily. “To think that he’d have any good feelings about me left. After everything.”

“So it really is all of you. That he wants caught.”

“And it really is just you that he doesn’t.”

(Leaving the flat Tyler had shaken Phil, gently, by the arms and said, “help us Phil Lester, you’re our only hope,” while Louise had said, shocked, “Tyler, don’t joke about that.”)

~*~

(“I want you to be heartbroken,” Jack said. “You’ll understand then. I want you to watch. I want you to try and help them and to fail. You get that, right? I can’t move on while you’re all still here, how can I be a good person when there’s still _you_ , and them.”

Jack’s eyes were scared. Mark looked right into them. “I’m sorry that the situation didn’t go the way that you wanted it to, Jack, but this isn’t -”

“The right way?” Jack shook his head. “It’s the only way.”

Mark, finally, months too late, said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t come to the Met. I did it because I thought it would help you. I wanted you to move on from me, I didn’t want you waiting somewhere for -”

“But I did. I did wait.”

“You needed to move on from me. You _need_ to move on from me.”

“How can I?” Jack said. “With this?”

That had been his parting line. One more curl of his hand, the pads of his fingers in the curve of Mark’s neck, and he was gone. He’d always been pretty good at that. Melting back into a crowd, anonymous and easy to overlook. Mark choked, like he’d taken some of the air with him.

He hadn’t gone back to the flat because he couldn’t face anyone. Or couldn’t face Phil, in particular. Phil, who had cracked and faltered as he said _if anything happens to Dan, if anything_ \- he retrieved his equipment from the safety deposit box he always leaves it, in London, and went to work.)

~*~

Mark repeats, “it really is just you.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Fuck, Phil, I don’t know. To _try_. To not run away, to try and put this mess right. This mess that _I_ caused.”

“But you didn’t. It’s not your fault that you didn’t -”

“We need to move Modern Rome. And get rid of whatever stuff he has that he’s gonna, I don’t know, _present_ to the police when they show up, and -”

“But why is he waiting?” Another guest walks into the Spain room. Phil and Mark look very interested in a painting of a mug of water and a rose. The guest leaves. Phil says, “he has everything now. Why do you all think he’s waiting?”

“This is his place of work. Maybe he doesn’t want to cause a scene. Wants to make sure I’m here. Maybe there’s other stuff to work out. Maybe for the dramatic effect. He’s a pretty dramatic person.”

~*~

**3pm.**

“Hello there. I’m an extremely important businessman on my way to a meeting and I’ve just found an _extremely inconvenient_ painting. What? Well, you’re the fine arts department, right? I don’t know, how would I know, I’m a high flying businessman with people to see and - flowers or something, I guess. No, I can’t wait for you, like I said, I’m very important. But it’s in my way, please move it.”

~*~

The rush of guests starts to quieten down, or at least all redirects to the coffee shop downstairs. Even so, the door of the Sunley Room seems completely unattainable, like it’s across an ocean. Like it’s Dan, across a river with blue lights bouncing off his curls.

Phil gestures to the cupboard next to it. “That’s where we were.”

Mark nods. “We’re not going to be able to do it now. It’s too out in the open. It’s gonna have to be after closing. Which is six, right?”

“That only gives two hours,” Phil says. “Until eight. That’s not enough.”

“It’s time for you to tell me what you’re doing here and what your plan is.”

They leave the gallery. Mark says it’s too noticeable, to be doing continual laps of the place, so they go to a coffee shop, a really busy one, to a booth as far from the door as possible.

Mark says, “so, they’re delaying the police with the fake Almond Blossoms? That’s clever, even if he tries to do it early, they’re always going to go for actual found paintings rather than an anonymous tip off. But, what about that one?” He points to the bag. “What are you doing with that one?”

If he’s honest Phil wants to keep it. He says, “it’s for security. A final delay if we need it,” a thought that has literally just come to him. “If you need it.”

“I have everything with me, Phil. I can help. With the cameras, the alarms. I have enough to be able to switch it off for an hour, maybe ninety minutes. I was going to set up and then try and get to him, but if you’re here - you can monitor it for me, I can show you how.”

Phil says, “no, you can monitor it. You can do that from here, right? Everyone is at Paddington, there’s a case for you, and tickets. If I’m not out of there in time you can go.”

“I wouldn’t go.” Mark sets his jaw, no room for arguments. “I wouldn’t. I’d sit here and wait.”

“Wait to get caught? What does that achieve?”

“Phil,” Mark shifts into Phil’s eyeline, holds his gaze. “If you get caught with the _real_ painting then you can’t come back from that. You can’t charm yourself out of -”

“The plan,” Phil interrupts. “You need to listen to the plan.”

~*~

**4pm.**

“Hello, fine arts department? I wanted to report - pardon? Yes, that’s right. Flowers. How did you - ”

~*~

_I wanted to be a good person, you made me want to be one, if anyone could have rescued me it would have been you_.

When he gets Dan back Phil will say, “I read your letter,” and it will mean: you are a good person. I didn’t make you want to be one, you are. I _am_ rescuing you, I _have_ rescued you, but then we rescued each other, really, didn’t we.

~*~

“That’s it?” Mark says. “That’s the plan?”

“I can’t move Modern Rome out of there. You said so. It’s impossible.”

Mark’s face does several, very complicated, things and finally lands on an expression close to resignation. “You go back in there at 5. Get into the closet for 5:30. It closes at 6, and you remember, right, the way that the guards walk around there? You remember that?”

Phil nods.

“You need to have get yourself to the Sunley Room, do whatever you’re gonna do, and get back to the closet in, like, twenty minutes, tops. They put the security system on from 6.30. And then I can over-ride it, I can give you until 8, Phil, but you need to be out of there at 8.”

“How can you? Louise couldn’t - she said it was too difficult to do. The National.”

Mark shifts in his seat. “Jack runs the codes, the cameras. The password’s a name. Four letters. I worked it out last night.”

Phil says, “oh. Of course.”

“You need to be out of there at 8.”

“I will. I promise I will.”

“If you can do all of that, if you can hold it until 8 and nothing gets done, then we’re all okay.” Mark looks doubtful, he’s pulling at his sleeves, but his voice is still assured, almost confident. “At 8 they have to release PJ and Dan. Tyler or Louise will have left them a message. They’ll be at Paddington straight away and you will be too.”

“But,” Phil says. “If I’m not.”

Mark says, “leave me Almond Blossoms. If you’re not out I’ll call in myself. Say it’s me, I’ve got the real one.”

Phil pulls the bag into his lap, protectively. “No. I’ll take it, if it comes to it then I can -” he almost says it, the next part of the sentence, but the words stop, somewhere.

“You can call in on Jack,” Mark finishes for him. “I get it. Take it as security, if that’s what you want to do, but you need to get rid of it as soon as you’re able to. Promise me.”

Phil curls his arms around the bag, the corners of Almond Blossoms pressing against his wrists.

“You can’t keep it,” Mark says, gently. “You know you can’t. I’ll buy you one, I’ll buy you a hundred when this is done, but you can’t keep it.”

Outside the coffee shop Mark hugs him, suddenly enough that he nearly takes out two passers-by in the way Mark swoops him into his arms (how is that even possible, with Mark being inches shorter than him). He bends his knees, so he can effectively lean his head on Mark’s shoulder.

“You can do this,” Mark says. “I know you can.”

~*~

**5pm.**

“Hello there, I can’t give my name as I’m a very famous undercover celebrity who - yes, I did want to report a found painting. No, I don’t know what it is, how would I know? I’m a very - I can’t wait for you to arrive. No, sorry. I can’t. Just please collect it.”

~*~

In the cupboard near the Sunley Room, the same cupboard, squashed under a shelf that’s too low to accommodate his height but with no Dan clasped to his chest. So not exactly like last time. He’d loitered in the hallway outside for while, watching the last few guests make their way over to the Sainsbury Wing and then taken the opportunity, opened the door and fallen straight into a mop and broom.

He’s too scared to move, to right himself, in case someone hears, so he’s stayed in the exact same, aftermath of falling, position. The bag is thrown across his chest, the top half of Almond Blossoms, the back half, just about visible.

Phil isn’t really looking at it, he’s trying to get to the phone Mark had given him, the burner phone, so they could keep in touch, and he just happens to look down and see, the red spot. In the corner

_I put red spots, in the top right corner, on the back of all my copies. Just to help if you’ve got the original._

Phil has to stuff his fist into his mouth, to muffle the noise he makes, involuntarily. There is no real Almond Blossoms. Or there is, but it is still in a gallery in Amsterdam. Never stolen. Mark hadn’t known it was a swap job but also hadn’t known that it wasn’t a job at all. The painting means nothing. The eighth fake, the one Hector had said was the best one. He cannot use it as security, he cannot use it for anything.

The phone, the burner phone, in his hand, how did it get into his hand, he must have picked it up without noticing, says _eleven guards as usual. I’ve told the other two. Is everything okay? You still have ab?_

Phil replies. _Everything is okay. I still have ab_ with a smiley face because he ends all of his messages with emojis, always, and does so even now, on a weird sort of autopilot.

~*~

**6pm.**

“Hello? Is this the fine arts department? I wanted to - oh goodness, you took the words right out of my mouth! Is it what? I really don’t know. It’s blue, with flowers. I could google it I suppose but - I’ll try and wait for you but I don’t know if I’ll be there when you arrive.”

~*~

Mark messages to say _it’s six_ and Phil taps out five minutes, slowly, with an inhale, and then an exhale, between each touch of his fingertip. He’d done this, last time, in this exact cupboard, with kisses to Dan’s face (forehead, nose, cheeks, chin) and Dan had said, _stay here_ , against Phil’s neck, a whisper that had trailed down and then up, away. Stay here.

He leaves Almond Blossoms, fake Almond Blossoms, in a space on one of the bottom shelves, and spins out of the cupboard, two turns along the wall, and then one final turn against the door of the Sunley Room.

There’s a sign hanging across the double door handles, which says “closed for preparations.” Phil thinks, much like he had the first time, preparations for _what_ and, at a loss of what else to do, unhooks the sign from one side and loops it from the other handle instead. He hopes, honestly, that no one notices but of course someone will.

The Sunley Room is large and, blessedly, filled with a huge assortment of things - obviously the National’s dumping ground. There’s tables and easels and three types of stepladder, sculptures and figurines and at least twenty painting shaped objects, all covered with dust sheets.

One of the painting shapes is much bigger than the others. Phil lifts a corner and sees one of the marble pillars, the mist settling over the mountains. Modern Rome. Dan wouldn’t have left it here, like this, hidden - Phil knows that. He would have rushed because Phil had been waiting for him, on his own in a cupboard, Dan would have dumped it and run. Jack must have come back, like he’d said ( _leave the Sunley Room, I’ll do that later_ ), had covered it with a sheet and left it with the others. Anonymous, until he needed it.

Phil grabs a side of Modern Rome, with each hand, and tugs until the painting topples forward into his arms. He could probably fit it under one arm, just about, he swings it to his right side, to do just that, and notices the back of the canvas. There’s an envelope stuck there. It has **1/3** stamped on the back.

_He told you he had evidence, video clips and recordings and -_.

Phil pulls the envelope loose with his free hand, and squeezes it. He can feel four things inside, memory sticks probably, two of, and then something that could be an iphone and another phone shaped thing, but this one feels older, like his college Nokia. He braces Modern Rome back onto its stand and stuffs the envelope (with some difficulty) into the pocket of his jeans.

He looks up. As he’d hoped, the Sunley Room ceiling, still being prepared for nothing in particular, is full of gaps, holes where the ladders should be leaning, big enough for a person to stick their head up into the rafters above. Potentially big enough for Modern Rome.

Climbing the ladder with the painting turns out to be the worst part. His balance, not really that great on normal, flat, land, almost completely gives up on him halfway up a twenty step ladder with a priceless canvas under his arm. Phil has to stop and right himself, in more ways than one. His heart is beating so fast that it flutters right into his throat. He thinks _breathe, Phil, breathe_.

The hole in the ceiling allows him to stick his head through the floor of a half built room above, an almost attic which is all plasterboard and open brick and a steady thud of raindrops, coming in from the roof above. Phil thinks, oh, they’re reinforcing the ceiling, that’s all, which gives him a small sense of triumph that no one will come up here. Not for weeks.

He holds Modern Rome up and slides it, diagonal, through the gap and over, until it’s flat on the boards above. He braces his hands either side and pulls himself up after it, hearing the plaster give a sad, and foreboding, creak.

Phil says, “sorry,” to nothing in particular, and then, “oh, sorry”, to Modern Rome, as he notices the patches of damp, the coldness of the temperature. He wraps its dust cloth cover tighter, makes sure absolutely every inch is covered. “I’m so sorry.”

There’s a tub of half mixed plaster, just to his left, about ten inches deep and close to setting. Phil empties the contents of the envelope into it, memory sticks and then two phones, pushes at them until they’ve each, successfully, sunk into the greyness.

**1/3**

He slides Modern Rome as far as it will go, as far as it will let him, right in the shadiest corner, into a gap of brick that’s only a centimetre taller than it. He says, “I’m really sorry. I am,” to it again. “Someone will find you. I swear. I promise.”

He drops back into the Sunley Room, misses a step and bounces straight off the ladder, nearly taking out two further paintings. The ladder leans off one leg and then leans back, loudly crashing down onto the wooden floor.

He thinks _oh come ON Phil_ and dashes from the room, hangs the sign back over both door handles and spins, three turns, back into the cupboard, just as he hears heavy footsteps on the main stairs.

Mark, as if knowing, has already texted to say, _that took too long_.

_It’s moved_ , Phil replies. _There was one envelope but it said one of three. I put everything in the plaster mix_.

Mark firstly says, _good. Good job. You’re doing great_ , because that’s the type of person he is, and then, _the other two will be in his office. I bet they’re in his office. You remember where that is_.

It’s not a question. Phil remembers, up through France. _But you need a card. He used a card_.

_There’s two features on the door_.

Up through France when he’d got the wrong exit. He won’t do that now.

_There’s card but there’s also a password. Four letters. A name_.

There was a time where Phil would have felt some sympathy towards Jack for that but now not so much. He pulls Almond Blossoms up from the shelf and hooks the bag over his shoulder, waits for the phone time to click over to 6.30.

_You need to destroy the phone now. Good luck Phil, I’ll see you at 8. Remember._

Phil turns the phone off and unclips it, like Mark had told him to do, takes out the SIM card and crunches it under his foot, picks up the pieces and scatters them into a water filled mop bucket on one of the other shelves. He puts the two halves of the phone back into his bag, all things considered it’s not the most suspicious thing he’s carrying at the moment.

~*~

(A ferry, back from the Isle of Man, Dan petting Phil’s hair, trying to help with the travel sickness. “But, then I met this security guard,” Dan said, like he was telling the start of a great story. “You should have seen him.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Dan smiled down at him. “Long story.”

“Is it? Tell me.”

“I don’t know,” Dan fake-frowned, the expression he likes when he wants to look deep, and like he’s pondering something. “It’s a bit sad, at the beginning.”)

~*~

The alarms being switched off means that the corridors are silent, none of the musical, unique tones from last time. Distinct lack of that chiming note of the front door being tried, the alarm which he still hears sometimes. He goes into Spain, to the heavy red wallpaper of Rubens.

_Tell me your route_ , Dan says, in his head. _Tell me your route. Tell me which exit from Claude and Turner. You’ll remember. You have to remember_.

Claude and Turner, a tiny room with four exits. Phil presses his hand to the wallpaper.

Dan in his head says, _be there waiting for me_.

Of course I will, Phil thinks, and takes the fourth exit.

~*~

(“It’s a great story,” Dan said. “I mean, the beginning’s sad because it’s about someone who -”

“You. It’s about you. And me.”

“It’s about me. And how sad I was, and how I was in a life that I didn’t think I could leave, and I didn’t know what to do, or really if anyone cared about what I was doing but, then, there was you.”

“But it has a happy ending,” Phil said, with a huge amount of finality.

“Does it?”

“It does. I know it does.”)

~*~

He walks up through France, the huge disapproving cardinals with their hands over their mouths and ears, sometimes their eyes. Still no alarms. The last time he was here he’d had Jack’s hand, casually, on his elbow, telling Phil that he’d really ruined the big finale. Hearing the alarm from the Square, the alarm of Dan trying to get back in.

There are voices in the main hall but they’re far away, just sounds. Phil pulls the leather bag strap more securely over his shoulder. Why is he still carrying Almond Blossoms? Why had Jack not stolen Almond Blossoms?

The Staff Only door doesn’t look foreboding. It doesn’t hold any fear for Phil, really, not anymore. He presses an ear to the wood but can’t hear anyone inside. The handle has, as promised, both a slot for a card and, above it, a keypad to enter in a password, letters or numbers.

Phil types, slowly, **M** , **A** , **R** and **K**. The code to everything, the reason for everything, a never-ending list of things for -

The door clicks in reply. Phil takes a long, shallow breath and opens it, just enough for him to slip inside and close it behind him.

He turns, leaves one hand splayed across the door, and says, “oh.”

Jack, at his desk, says, “oh” back.

Phil pulls at his collar. “I wasn’t -”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Jack says. “I never would have been expecting you.”

Jack looks tired, which makes his eyes somehow bluer, underlined with dark grey circles. He’s not in his National uniform, his name plaque is gone, the photographs are gone. His hair looks like he’s tried to wash the green out, some tinge remains but it’s mostly a light brown. He seems surprised to see Phil, but trying to hide it.

Phil says, “we talked about this before. You underestimating me.”

Jack nods. “We talked about this _yesterday_.” None of his words have their usual sarcasm, there’s no laugh to his voice. It’s completely light in volume and sincere in tone. “I thought about you. Yesterday.”

Phil almost laughs. “Did you? When? On which phone call to the police were you thinking about _me_?”

“It was clever. What you did today, with the paintings. Hugely delayed everything, the police have been rushing all over London. I thought it might have been Louise’s idea but it wasn’t, was it? It was yours.”

Phil says nothing.

“It was clever,” Jack repeats, faintly. “To do that. With the fake Almond Blossoms.” He tracks his eyes to the bag, then flicks them up to Phil’s face. “I’m guessing that you don’t know about that one though.”

“I know about it,” Phil replies, loftily. Jack doesn’t need to know that he only found that out just now, in a cupboard. “You never stole it.”

“I never stole it. He didn’t want me to. So I didn’t.” Phil thinks again that Jack looks tired. Can’t put the effort into the fakeness of his voice anymore. He looks almost apologetic, like every word he’s trying to say is _sorry_ but it keeps coming out wrong. “I didn’t steal it.”

~*~

(Almond Blossoms was, honestly, Hector’s best work. The original was maybe slightly calmer, more serene, when you looked at them right next to each other, but otherwise you wouldn’t know. It was the perfect swap job.

Mark had not known, that it was a swap job. He missed all the clues, the same way that he missed the way Jack looked at him, the way Jack spoke to him. The same way he missed the complete obviousness of how much Jack was in love with him.

“I love floral paintings,” Mark said, seconds after he had grabbed Jack’s hand and then dropped it, laughing. “I sorta want to leave this one here. You know?”

Jack stared down at his hand, the hand Mark had just been holding and said, “we could leave it here. If you want.”

“We can’t do that.”

“We could. Is that what you want to do? We could.”

Mark shook his head. “Felix would be pissed. We can’t throw a job just because I want to leave it here.”

I would do anything you wanted, Jack thought. Anything at all.

He’d gone to the Van Gogh museum the night before they’d planned, as standard. Had stood in front of the real Almond Blossoms with a fake Almond Blossoms in his arms and all he could see was Mark, the one and only time he had ever said _I want to leave it here_.

And so Jack had. He’d left it there and it meant _I love you_.)

~*~

“I put it in the middle of the list. To get you to Amsterdam and out of the way, to complete safety. But no, you had to go to the Isle of Man and not -”

“Wow, thanks. You’re always thinking of me. How considerate of you.”

Jack doesn’t bite back, doesn’t meet the sharpness of Phil’s tone. He says, “I was. I was thinking of you. You have no idea how jealous of you I am. You’re everything I ever wanted to be, you _have_ everything I ever wanted to have. I’d let you walk out of here right now, if you wanted to.”

“I don’t want to.” Phil isn’t sure how to deal with this version of Jack. But then, it’s not a version of Jack. It’s Sean. Jack is a version of Sean, the hurt, heartbroken part. Phil’s just never interacted with Sean very much. “I just want him back. You didn’t need to do that. You know you didn’t.”

Jack says again, “I wasn’t expecting it to be you,” pulling at the sleeves of his sweater. “I wish it wasn’t you. I wish it had never been you in the first place.”

“You came to find me,” Phil points out. “In the beginning.”

“It’s weird,” Jack says. “All of this planning and now that it’s happened, I don’t feel - I don’t know what I was expecting to feel. But I don’t feel better. That wasn’t true, what I said to you.”

Phil latches onto the words. “So, how do you feel?”

“Same as I always did. But worse, maybe. And I didn’t think that was possible.”

~*~

(Jack had waited in the Met for months. He barely interacted with his colleagues because he took the oddest shifts, the earliest starts and the latest finishes. Because that’s when Mark would come, of course, to avoid suspicion, either really early or really late. Of course it would be. Jack had pictured it, in his mind, looking out down the steps, through the tourists, and seeing Mark, who would hold his hand out, and say. What. Jack hadn’t thought much about what Mark would say. There you are? I told you I’d come back? Sorry to keep you waiting?

Waiting, when your heart is already nothing but a series of splintered pieces held together by a string of fast dissolving hope, is not good for peace of mind. Jack knew that and now knows that from experience. By day, he looked out down the steps and waited. By night, he stole (from his museum, from the Agora, the David Zwirner, the Sperone Westwater, everywhere) and waited. He waited. He sent the pieces to Felix, who commented on Jack’s apparent love of New York, and thought Mark will know. He’ll know I’m here. One day I’ll look out, down the steps, and he’ll be there.

Mark never was there. The next time Jack saw him it would be in a fancy London restaurant; Jack hiding at the bar but dressed nicely, in case Mark saw him. Watching Phil drink cocktails that came with a side of flowers. Watching the way Dan looked at him. Mark had not seen him. Mark had frowned in his general direction but hadn’t _seen_ him. Jack watched Phil blow rose petals into Dan’s hair and had never felt more jealous of anyone [which one of them was he jealous of, exactly? He’s not sure.]

He sent Mark messages, of everything he stole. Pieces picked deliberately so Mark would like them. Mark only responded sometimes, never using more than ten words. Once he’d used eleven and Jack had felt that extra word in his _soul_.

Then one day Felix, accepting the most recent piece, said something like, “thanks. You’re my best one, now everyone’s coupling off and leaving me.”

Jack blinked. He’d heard about Dan and Phil, by that point. They all had. Everyone said it was lovely news. Jack thought it was lovely news, in a way that _lovely_ was a far-off dream that he would never be able to grasp himself. Phil had been a security guard, he’d heard. Not that far from a tour guide, really. “Everyone?”

“Well, Dan, obviously. And Alfie’s got one he actually seems serious about. Oh, and Mark. With that girl in LA.” Felix had punched Jack on the top of his arm. “You’re my best one.”

The string of hope around Jack’s heart snapped, the pieces fell away with nothing to hold them anymore. He gasped at the feel of it.

Felix, of course, did not notice.)

~*~

“I’m sorry,” Phil begins, “about everything that happened, but -”

“You realise,” Jack says, “that you’re the only person who ever apologised. And you’re the only one who wasn’t even there. And you’re the only one who came here now.”

“The situation isn’t going to change. That’s what you said. And it’s true. It’s not. But it’s not fair. How can it be fair? How am I not allowed to do something about it?”

“But what are you doing about it? Getting them all caught?”

“Yes,” Jack says. “All of us. We deserve it.”

Phil stops whatever he was going to say next.

Jack says, “I know that _I_ do, anyway.”

_I only wanted to be a good person, Phil, that’s all. How can I be, with this?_

“All of them including you.” Phil, finally realising, pushes himself off the door. “All of them including you.”

“How could it not include me?”

“None of this needs to happen. What do you want? Do you want someone to talk to, you can talk to me, we can talk about anything you want, anything at all.”

“Looking at you is like looking at everything I wanted and couldn’t have,” Jack replies, if that is even a reply. “I could have been you, I wanted -”

“So, what, taking him from me makes you feel better?”

“None of this has made me feel better.” Jack sounds slightly surprised by this fact. “Not even a little bit.”

~*~

(He had transferred over to the National. It had been easy with his experience, and also some gentle manipulation of their computer system to make sure that he got through to the interview stage.

It had been more difficult to find a job where one of them [as he was thinking of them now, as an entity. Them] had left behind any damage. There was only one, Reflection of the Big Dipper. Damage to a sky light, obviously Dan [who had a tendency to amble through jobs like a baby deer, unsure of his height and the length of his limbs, crashing into everything.] A gallery owner’s son who, on meeting him at Victoria, Jack could already see had enough passive aggressiveness to make this plan work.

“Do this for me,” he said. “And I’ll give you enough to repair the skylight and probably the whole roof too.”

To Felix, weeks later, he said, “the lists. I’ll help with them, you’ve got bigger stuff to do. And who knows these paintings better than me?”

He’d sat in Phil’s editing seminar and looked at him, black sweep of fringe, foxes on his sweater, his hands dancing through the air every time he spoke, three colours in his eyes, had thought _oh, I see_ on Dan’s behalf. It was easy, so easy, to say _I want to help you_ and have Phil say _I want you to help Dan. I can’t let anything happen to him_ , his blue/green/yellow eyes wide with hope and gratitude.

He’d thought Phil would be easy to manage. He’d thought that Phil would have no effect on him whatsoever. That had been the first mistake.)

~*~

“So, you’re going to call the police on yourself?”

Jack says, “not just me. I have Modern Rome still, I have three envelopes of evidence. I have two of them caught. I have two running around London, waiting to leave. And then, Mark. Waiting for you somewhere.”

Phil says, “Jack.”

“Like he never waited for me.”

Phil casts his eyes around the room for any sign of the other two envelopes. There’s nothing. Then, he thinks. Remembers where the last one had been. It would be the perfect place but there’s no way he can go back. He won’t remember the way. Why hadn’t he checked the others?

Jack watches him, but without the usual air of interest. He looks so so tired. Phil tries again, “you don’t have to do this.”

“And you don’t have to stay to watch it,” Jack replies.

He can remember the way. He can. He knows he can.

Phil says, “no. I don’t plan to,” and fumbles behind his back until he’s able to open the door. Jack makes a surprised, almost disappointed, little noise. “I won’t be watching it. I won’t be watching _anything_.”

He lets himself out, closes the door, looks around desperately and sees a plant, one of the generic ones that always seem to be in museums and galleries, tall and green and the kind he would never be able to keep alive. He drags it right in front of Jack’s office, wedges the top of the holder under the door handle, turns, and runs.

~*~

**7pm.**

“Fine arts department? Yes, I - please don’t interrupt me. I wanted to - well, you’ll have to turn around and come this way instead because I’ve found - how would I know if it’s a Van Gogh? How am I supposed to know that? I don’t care if it is another one, you’re supposed to come and deal with it, so come and deal with it. Please.”

~*~

He runs back through France, through Claude and Turner, through Rubens, into Spain. _Remember, Phil. You have to remember. Be there waiting for me_. With no alarms his feet sound impossibly loud, even in Converse, hitting the floor, but the guards, he can hear, are all downstairs, in the main hall, probably trying to work out why the door alarms won’t set.

He’s at the doors of the Sunley Room when he hears a loud smash, like the vase of a plant being broken. He pulls the sign right off the door handles and lets himself in.

~*~

(“I mean, we’re working together, and we’ve got a plan, and everything is going to be okay. That’s why it’s going to have a happy ending. I know.”

Dan brushed Phil’s hair off his forehead, held it there, and then let it fall back, strand by strand. “Well, I’ll just trust you then.” 

Phil reached up to try and do the same to Dan’s hair but Dan was too far away, above him, so he settled for one strong pull on his collar instead. “You should always trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”)

~*~

Phil pulls the dust sheets off everything, every single thing, throwing them into the air and coughing against the clouds of fluffy dust particles that rise with them. He runs from object to object, hitting things over, picking sculptures up to look underneath. A few things hit the floor but he doesn’t check.

There’s two envelopes stuck to the back of the same painting, **2/3** and **3/3**. Phil doesn’t even register what the painting is, just grabs the envelopes and stuffs them into his pockets, one in each, knocks the painting right off its stand.

He kicks over the ladder, still where he’d left it, making it so obvious where Modern Rome has ended up, crashing it into an empty easel just as Jack bursts into the room.

Phil sees the exact moment that Jack realises that Modern Rome is gone, the widening of his eyes. The kind of expression he would usually hide behind a whole load of bravado and noise. His mouth falls open. It’s almost the same moment that they hear footsteps on the stairs, someone shouting.

Jack, coughing himself with the dust, turns and yells, “it’s me, it’s just me.”

The footsteps stop. “Sean? Didn’t think you were in today. What the fuck are you doing? It sounds like you’re trashing the place.”

“I knocked a ladder over. It hit something else, it’s fine.”

A pause. “Do you need any -”

“No, no, it’s fine.”

“We could use you down here. The alarms won’t go online, we’ve been trying for ages.”

Jack looks at Phil. “Keep trying. They never stay down for long, should be back up soon.”

The footsteps retreat.

Jack, a whisper wrapped around a sob, says, “where is it?”

Phil takes a step back. “I moved it.”

“Who else is here? How did you stop the alarms?”

“No one, it’s just me.”

“I called the police,” Jack says. “Two hours ago. They kept getting delayed with your fake Almond Blossoms.” He looks at Phil’s bag. “If they come here now.”

“Then I need to go.”

Jack looks at the painting that had held the two envelopes, now face down on the floor. “There’s actually four.”

“What?”

“One of them’s just me. But I’ve got that one, obviously.”

Phil, thoroughly confused and scared and _tired_ of this whole thing, says, “mostly you?”

“There’s no way out of this room other than through the main doors.”

“Mostly _you_?”

_I want the whole thing over_ Jack had said. _If we could rewind I would do it differently. I would put it right to please You._ _Could it have been different with You You You_.

“It should be me and him,” Jack says. “Not me and you.”

“That’s what you wanted?”

“Where is it?” Jack repeats. “The painting.”

“I moved it. I hid it.”

Jack says, “you’re just full of surprises. You know, this whole thing, this whole plan….you were the only thing I misjudged. I knew exactly what everyone else would do. I _knew_ Felix would run away, in the end, I knew Dan was easily distracted, I knew what PJ’s plans would be, every time. But, you.”

Phil says, “I told you.”

“You walked right back into the gallery where you got caught, by yourself, all because you love him,” Jack says, wonderingly. “Who does that? What kind of a person does that?”

“Me. I would do that. You’re going to give yourself and everyone else up to the police because you love Mark, that’s a weird version of the same thing.”

“I loved Mark,” Jack says, “more than I’ve ever loved anything. Sometimes I think he was the only thing I’m capable of loving, that’s weird right?”

“That’s sad,” Phil says, and means it. “And I understand, that you’re heartbroken, but -”

“I’m not heartbroken, Phil. My heart didn’t break, it exploded. And it wasn’t the most stable of things to start with. I waited. For months. And no one waited for me. No one even noticed. He said, why didn’t I tell him, and, Phil, you have no idea how obvious I was. I couldn’t have been more obvious. I mean, it’s not so much that he didn’t care but more that he was completely indifferent. And that hurt. It all hurt. Every second of it.” Jack is pressing himself against the wall, right into the heavy wallpaper. He says, “have you ever been heartbroken?”

“Do you want me to be?” Phil asks.

The answer to the question is yes. He was heartbroken in a basement in Manchester, once, a long time ago. Jack knows this and raises his eyebrows.

“They can mend,” Phil adds. “Hearts. They don’t have to stay -”

“I don’t want you to be. To answer your question. I got kinda attached to you, obviously, somewhere in there. Why did it have to be you who came here?”

Somehow, while speaking, Jack has slid right down the closest wall, hands pressed at his sides like he’s trying to push himself away from something. Phil kneels down. It’s a mirror image, he realises, of last time, except now Jack is the one on the ground.

“It doesn’t need to still hurt,” Phil says. “You can’t punish yourself for what you felt and you can’t punish them for what they didn’t feel.”

“Poetic.” Jack smiles, not the fake Jack smile, a small half one. Everything about Sean is small in comparison to Jack.

“The situation’s never going to be what you wanted it to be, you can’t change it. It is what it is, and that’s okay.”

“Are we talking about me or you here?”

Phil sighs. “Both. Is this what you want? To have you all go to prison? Me too, probably, as I’m here. What does that achieve? Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel anything?”

“It’s too late, Phil. The button’s pressed. You’re nearly out of Almond Blossoms. We’re in a room with no exit other than the main doors.”

“Answer the question.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better. I thought - I just - I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this.”

Jack says, “why are you being so _nice_ to me? After everything?”

“We’re the same,” Phil says. “I could have been you just as much as you could have been me. You know that.”

~*~

_“Just remember. You can’t save everyone. If it comes to it. You can’t save him.”_

Phil should have told Tyler, “well then you don’t know me very well at all,” or something along those lines.

Mark, outside the coffee shop, holding Phil’s head to his shoulder in a vice like hug, said, “for what it’s worth, he’s not beyond helping. I don’t think so. It’s just that you’re probably the only one that can do it. And if the plan is to try and talk to him then it’s best that it’s you.”

_You said, if only you’d had a me in your life before._

_He never noticed. None of them did. Well, except you._.

What would have happened to his heart, he wonders, if he had waited. If he had taken all the early shifts and late shifts in the Tate just in case Dan came back. If he had left unanswered messages in the Missed Connections section of the Metro. If the piano had been crammed into the living room of his flat in Islington, a signal that no one ever followed.

“He’s not beyond helping,” Phil told Mark, not unkindly but also not without accusation. “I know that. It’s just that no one ever tried.”

~*~

“Jack,” Phil reaches his hand out. “Come with me. It doesn’t need to -”

Jack says “I can’t” in the same little voice from the mini in Paris, all the times that he broke character. All the times that Sean revealed himself. “I can’t do it.”

The time, finally, hits eight. The alarms explode all at once, every single one together, Mark no longer able to hold them off; birdsong and bass and sails, a howling orchestra that’s somehow the best thing he’s ever heard. Phil exhales. Eight pm. He did it. Dan will, somewhere, be stepping out of a police station to a message from Louise. To safety. To _stay_.

Jack stares at the ceiling like the sound has betrayed him in some way. “I can’t -”

Phil says, “it’s over. It’s over.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

Phil holds out his hand. “Come on. We have to go.”

Jack just stares at him, eyes wide and blue.

“I returned them. They’re all returned, there’s nothing here anymore. Modern Rome is gone, the evidence is gone. There’s nothing here except us.”

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“I know, I _know_ , but we have to go. You can’t stay here. You’ll get caught.”

Jack blinks up at him. “ _We’ll_ get caught. Why are you still here?”

“No, come on, don’t do this.” Phil tugs, ineffectively, at Jack’s shoulder. “Please.”

“It’s for the best, thought.” Jack leans away. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

Phil says, “ _Sean_.”

Jack starts like Phil has slapped his face, makes a shocked hiccup of a noise like he can’t catch his breath. “Don’t -”.

“Please, Sean.”

“Stop.” Jack finally reaches whatever air he was gasping for. “Stop calling me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“I see what you’re doing.” Jack sounds like he’s run a marathon. “I know what you’re -”

“You wanted to rewind. To put it right.”

“Phil,” Jack shakes his head. “I see what you’re doing. But some people can’t be saved.”

Phil sighs, and sits beside him. Jack, with a facial expression that’s finally as dramatic as Phil remembers, looks horrified and pushes at his arm. Phil says, “I don’t believe that.”

~*~

(A self with a different name, a heart you can’t put back together, a conscience stamped with so many thefts and lies and untruths and Melody Carters [oh, Melody, how awful that had been, how much he’d hated himself afterwards], a past that you cannot change.

And only one person who had ever said _we can talk. I’ll listen. If you want to talk_ in all his bright shirts and his inability to listen to plans and his walking straight into a world he didn’t understand because he thought it would help someone he loved. The first person to read, to properly read, the Missed Connections, and to understand them.)

~*~

Jack pulls another envelope, more of a small parcel really, from the inside pocket of his sweater. Phil instantly reaches for it. Jack says, “no, no, it’s not about them. You’ve got those. I promise. I promise you have. This is mine. This is all of mine. This is what I need to give to them.”

Phil says, “it doesn’t have to -”

“You can go through the ceiling. If you crawl along to the left you can drop into the next room, it’s the top level of the main basement. Go down four levels -”

Phil says, “you can -”

“You,” Jack begins. And then again, “you.” He finally manages, “you are one of the most - I wished, when I said, I wished that I’d had a you, that there’d been a you, in my life before, I meant it. That would have made some difference. I think.”

There’s a loud crash of the main doors bursting open, several heavy footsteps.

Jack says, “Almond Blossoms. Leave me Almond Blossoms.” When Phil doesn’t move he jumps up, pulls the bag right off Phil’s shoulder. He says, “Phil.”

“It’s not real.”

“Doesn’t matter.” There’s voices downstairs, in the hall. “Get up the ladder, I’ll knock it down, after you.” Phil still doesn’t move. “Phil. You saved them. You saved the situation. You saved them all.” He pulls Phil up, hands under his arms, “you were going to wait here, with me? Why? He’s waiting, you know he is. He always is.”

Phil allows himself to be propelled to the ladder, watches Jack prop it up and says, “not you. I saved everyone except you.”

Jack watches him place one foot, then the next, and begin climbing. When he decides Phil isn’t going fast enough for his liking he moves behind him, starts pushing at Phil’s back. 

“I,” Jack says, “cannot be saved. But I can still be a good person, sometimes. I was one, once. Sean was a good person.”

Phil, halfway up, says, “you are a -”

Jack says, “it’s time someone let you out of the basement for a change, don’t you think? Actually that doesn’t make sense because you’re going into a basement but whatever,” and pushes Phil, firmly, up into the ceiling, kicking the ladder away.

~*~

Phil crawls to the left, hesitates, and stays, flat on his stomach, next to Modern Rome’s hiding place (it appears, thankfully, to be out of the way of the damp patches). There’s noise as security, and the police, finally enter the Sunley Room, about five minutes later. He hears voices but he doesn’t hear Jack, not at all.

He feels sad, horribly, achingly sad. For Jack, who could not be helped, with his envelope of evidence on himself. Jack, who had planned to give himself up with everyone else, all along. Would it have been different, if Mark had come here, like he’d wanted to? Phil pulls himself along on his elbows, represses the urge to cough and sneeze, from all the plaster dust in the air, and finally drops into the room underneath.

He ends up in the basement Tyler had mentioned, the four levels that he has to keep walking down. They are, oddly for the National, almost completely empty, the few items that are there are covered with waterproof guards.

(“I’m going to talk to him,” he’d said to Mark, not at all confidently. “He listens to me. We’re the same. I could have been him. He could have been me.”

“That’s a lot to put on him having some good feeling about you,” Mark replied. “That’s it? That’s the plan?”

[Jack, blinked, repeated, somewhere on the South Bank with the sun in his eyes, “I never put you anywhere I couldn’t save you from.”]

“That’s it,” Phil said. “That’s the plan.”)

Everyone else had known he was coming, everyone else had been prepared. Jack had prepared for everything but Phil had known, always, that there was one thing he had never prepared for because it had never happened. How surprised he’d always been by Phil talking to them all, by Phil caring what happened to them, to Melody, to Madame Darbonne, to Connor. Probably, Phil thinks, because no one had never stayed to talk to him.

_Think Phil_ , Jack had said, the last time. _From my perspective_. And so he had.

~*~

The sprinklers come on somewhere in basement number three, just after he’s walked down five steps and ended up splashing into standing water. He blinks and looks up, the water running down the walls and into alcoves. There’s one small dip of floor which has become a puddle, almost ankle deep. Phil drops the second envelope there, stamps his foot up and down on it until he feels the phones inside snap and break, until the whole thing becomes a pile of sodden paper and shattered bits of plastic.

He waits there, for a while, to catch his breath, feeling like he hasn’t breathed properly for the past six hours. He kneels, in the faint mist of the water, and inhales. And exhales.

~*~

The fourth basement is the smallest, nothing but a tiny space with objects covered in plastic sheets and the steady thud of water drops hitting them. There are four windows, all with evening light beaming through, all to the outside. Phil can see the grey of the sky, can hear voices from the Square.

One of the windows is wide open. Phil was expecting that, wishing for that, had known that as soon as they were released, as soon as they reached Tyler and Louise, as soon as they got told, Dan would come here. Of course he would. Of course he had.

Dan says, “there you are,” from beside a painting, across a bar, in bed next to him, on the other side of a bridge miles from him. In a basement, right in front of him, arms already outstretched, bathed in the silver light of an open window. “There you are.”

Phil has to hold his fringe off his forehead, water running down his cheeks, into his eyes, his shirt is stuck to his skin. He’s sure he’s lost a contact lense, somewhere along the way, and squints at Dan, who comes closer to him, presses his hands to Phil’s cheeks. Reveals himself perfectly in focus.

Phil says, “it’s over. The whole thing. We did it.”

“ _You_ did it,” Dan replies.

Phil tries, unsuccessfully, to shake the water off his face. He says, “it wasn’t the real one,” which makes no sense, but Dan hasn’t even noticed. Phil repeats, “it wasn’t the real one,” and then, all of sudden, with no build up or warning whatsoever, he’s crying, hiccuping sobs that explode out of the knotted oxygen in his lungs.

Dan says, “Phil,” and tries to kiss the tears from his cheeks. It’s difficult, with the extra water. Phil almost laughs. Dan doesn’t laugh because, Phil notices, he’s crying too.

Phil says, “Dan,” and rubs under his eyes with his thumbs, right along his cheekbones. “Dan.”

Dan presses his forehead to Phil’s, all the water drops from his fringe onto Phil’s eyelashes. Phil keeps Dan’s face cupped in his hands, keeps rubbing reassuring circles into Dan’s cheeks. Dan is still crying, a little, but he’s also smiling now, both dimples (Phil touches his finger to them, left and then right).

Phil says, “Dan.”

Dan sniffs. “We can’t just stand here saying each other’s names. Everyone’s waiting,” but he doesn’t move. Neither of them do.

Phil says, “you’re okay.”

“Of course I am. But you. You shouldn't even _be_ here. I had a plan, I told Louise, I -”

“I know,” Phil says. “I read your letter.”

Dan kisses him, sobs right into Phil’s mouth.

Phil says, mumbles into the corner of Dan’s lips, “How you could ever think I would leave you. I would _never_. How do you think I would even function without you?”

“Don’t _say_ stuff like that.” Dan kisses Phil’s chin, both cheeks, his forehead. “I can’t believe -”

“I’m sorry.”

“What _for_?”

“I don’t know,” Phil says. “I really don’t know.”

~*~

Mark, outside, says, “you did it.”

“I didn’t,” Phil says, “I didn’t. He was going to give himself up, he _did_ give himself up. That was the plan, the whole time. It was for all of you.”

Mark has to take some time to process this. He has to go and sit down, clearing a whole load of tourists from the nearest bench, falls onto it like his legs suddenly aren’t working. He says, “I want to wait. I want to see him. They’ll bring him out, right?”

“We can’t wait very long,” Dan looks up at the gallery. He has his little finger linked with Phil’s, they’re both still soaked, from the sprinklers, shivering in their bright clothes. Dan is still in his pastel sweater, the student disguise, sleeves pulled over his hands. “You know that.”

The floodlights of the National never come on. The security guards never come out to survey the Square. The alarms, a gentle hum in the background, switch off with very little fuss. No one notices except the three of them.

Mark, waiting for Jack, says, “so, where is he?”

“We can’t wait,” Dan repeats. “Mark. We can’t wait.”

Mark stands, looks back at the National, and says, “okay. It’s done. Okay.” He pats himself, or punches himself, in the chest three times (as if to say _get yourself together_ ). 

~*~

They stand in Paddington station; the six of them. Tyler says, “back to real life then, I guess.” He’s breathless, having spent the past ten minutes spinning Phil around the entrance hall, like they were lovers being reunited after a war, whooping and yelling _you did it_ while people stared at them.

(Phil hadn’t whooped or yelled back. He feels like he could just lean his head on Dan’s shoulder and go to sleep. For a week or a month or a year.)

PJ says, “I don’t know what real life _is_.”

Tyler smiles at him. “It’s the best Peej, I promise. Come see me at the Tate, I’m sure they’d love someone with your art knowledge.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” PJ blinks.

Tyler leaves first, having booked a train to Brighton. He hugs everyone, and pats Phil’s head. “I’m proud of you. Not to, like, sound surprised about that or anything. But you did good.”

Louise goes second; hugs Dan and Phil both at the same time, pressing them right into the floral scent of her cardigan. She says, “my boys!” in a maternal, proud way that makes Phil want to cry. Dan stays, arms around her, for ten seconds after Phil has detached himself. She cups his chin, stays “take care of yourself, Dan Howell. And you, Phil. Take care of each other.”

PJ says, “I’m not great with goodbyes, really” and clasps Phil’s shoulder in place of a hug. “I mean, it’s not goodbye. Not now I’m an actual normal member of society and all. Someone needs to help me find a proper job, I wasn’t joking.” He hugs Dan and disappears when they’re all looking the other way.

Mark is last, instantly teary.

Phil says, “stay. You can stay with us for a bit.”

Mark shakes his head. He says, “I think” and then has to stop and compose himself. “I think you’ve done enough for me these past few weeks. Both of you.” His face crumples. “Sorry. I wasn’t going to cry. I was going to try and - _fuck_.”

Phil hugs him, lets him make snuffling noises into his shoulder while Dan says, “Mark, don’t cry” in a dangerously wet sounding voice. Dan isn’t great with people crying.

Mark, finally, gives them both a hug, a final clasp, and says, “you two. I just. For everything, thank you. Come to the US, or I’ll come wherever.” He runs a hand over his face, “I’m crying again, so I think -” and then he’s gone.

Phil squints through his one eye at Dan, pulls at their still interlocked fingers to confirm that Dan is real. Dan is here.

Dan says, “hey Phil?”

Phil says, “what?”

“Let’s go home.”

“We can’t,” Phil says, apologetically. “Just in case. Tyler said. We’ve got to go and stay somewhere for a week, so I thought -”

“That’s okay.” Dan touches his knuckles to Phil’s jaw, briefly. “I’m already home anyway.”

~*~

They’re on the train when Dan says, “hey Phil?” again, reaches out and catches Phil’s wrist.

Phil, half asleep and mouth full of bitter train coffee, says, “what?”

“Marry me.”

Phil almost laughs. His hair hasn’t dried properly, there’s a tuft on the back that’s sticking right up, like a fan. He couldn’t find his contact lenses in his bag so one eye is still blurry. His clothes are covered in dust, there’s plaster flaking on his fingertips. He’s pale and hungry and tired. He draws a hand over himself. “You’re asking me this now?”

“Marry me,” Dan repeats. “I love you. I’m happiest when I’m around you. I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Even now?”

“Especially now. Marry me.”

Phil says, “I should never have said that we shouldn’t talk about it. I shouldn’t have said we met at the Tate. I’ll put all our Manchester photos back up. I’ll tell my mum Dylan isn’t real. Tell me about all your jobs, everything. I love everything about you.”

Dan looks confused but smiles anyway. It’s blinding even in the current blurriness of Phil’s vision. “Is that a yes?”

Phil holds his free hand out. Dan takes it instantly. Phil says, “hi, I’m Phil. I’m a recently ex -”

Dan says, “seriously?” but his eyes are shining bright.

“ - a recently ex security guard who fell in love with an art thief who returned a Van Gogh and threw a job, just for me. You probably saw it on the news. I eat too much sugar and can’t keep houseplants alive, and I’m doing a post-grad. I think my final project is probably going to be about you. I think everything’s going to be about you.”

“I’m Dan. I dropped out of Law and stole priceless pieces of art for years. I used to enjoy it until I didn’t. Until there was you. I play the piano now. You got me a piano. I wear a lot of black and I’m really awkward most of the time. And is that a yes?”

Phil says, “yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Almond Blossoms resides in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and is one of a series of paintings of almond trees. He painted this particular one for his brother to honour the birth of his nephew, who was also called Vincent. 
> 
> \- The Sunley Room of the National is still under preparation at the time of writing this fic. I’m sure it’s not actually being used as a place to leave paintings, _or is it_. 
> 
> \- The National has also changed its floor plan a little from last time, so Phil’s route actually goes through different rooms now irl. I’ve kept it the same here for story reasons :)
> 
> And here is [Orpheus Leading Eurydice From The Underworld](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot_-_Orpheus_Leading_Eurydice_from_the_Underworld_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/937px-Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot_-_Orpheus_Leading_Eurydice_from_the_Underworld_-_Google_Art_Project.jpgOrpheus%20Leading%20Eurydice%20From%20The%20Underworld%20by%20Jean-Baptiste-Camille%20Corot) by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - which lives at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. I like to think they’re in the Elysian Fields, but maybe not.


	13. the sea at saintes-maries-de-la-mer - vincent van gogh  (epilogue)

(Halfway to Paddington Phil had said, “wait”, and ran to the bank of the river, leaving Mark [still in a daze] behind.

Dan, beside him, still clutching Phil’s hand, said, “what?”

He threw the remaining package, its collection of memory sticks and phones and security surveillance, its memories and proof of Dan’s past, of everyone’s pasts, watched it spin in a graceful curve until it hit the surface of the water.

“What was that?” Dan watched it bob, once, twice, and then disappear.

“That was the proof,” Phil told him. “That was everything he’d collected on you all.”

Dan said, “well, now we really don’t have to talk about it ever again.” When Phil frowned he added, “all of this, I mean. We can go back to - you know, what we were doing before.”

Phil had sighed. “That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want then?”

“You. And all of the wonderful and sometimes not so wonderful things that you are.”

Dan, still teary eyed from the basement, still damp in the flicks of his hair, looked at the spot in the water where the parcel had been. “But you said that you didn’t want -”

“This isn’t about what I _said_. Listen to what I’m saying now. What I’ve been saying for these past weeks, with Monets and Matisses and Turners and Hoppers and -”

Dan sniffed, close to tears again. “I love you.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.”)

~*~

They’d caught the train up to Liverpool and then the ferry. Phil managed to locate his glasses, somewhere at the bottom of the pile of nonsense he’d packed in his bag. Dan, trying to find something warmer to wear, had opened his suitcase and blinked at the neat rows of black, the cards, the photos. He said, “what’s all this?” very softly.

“Oh,” Phil says. “That was just in case. You know.” 

The Isle of Man house was still freezing cold, the rock garden is still in two halves, one perfectly arranged, the other endearingly scattered with random flowers and piles of stones. Two cereal bowls still in the sink, Phil’s single bed still unmade when Dan pushes him onto it, settling himself into Phil’s lap and settling his mouth against the underneath of Phil’s jaw.

Phil, finally in the privacy of somewhere that it’s just them, said, or whispered, against all of the air that Dan was stealing from his lungs, “I missed you.”

Dan didn’t say _it was only a day_ , or, _but I came back_ , or any of those things. He pressed his nose into Phil’s neck, as soft as a wingbeat, and said, “I missed you too.”

~*~

_The owners of the Serpentine Gallery, in Kensington Gardens, were amazed to find a lost American masterpiece in their current outdoor exhibition this morning. Lady Agnew had been missing for over a year and was discovered in a picnic hamper in the centre of the exhibit. It will returned to the National Gallery of Scotland by the end of the week. Police are keen to speak to a couple who were apparently having a picnic in the Gardens on Friday evening, around the same time that there were reports of a minor disturbance in the gallery._

__

__

_The National Gallery of Scotland stated, “we’re delighted and can’t wait to have her back where she belongs.”_

~*~

Dan, the next morning, said, “I haven’t bought you a ring yet.”

Phil, in the process of tying Dan’s scarf, ready to walk into town, shrugged. “That’s okay. I haven’t bought you one either.” It was more casual than he meant, after a night of thinking that maybe, _maybe_ , the marry me had been said in the spur of the moment, on the adrenaline of finding each other again. That Dan was going to wake up and say actually maybe they should wait a bit. “It’s fine.”

“We’ll get it when we’re back in London. I know the exact one that I want. It’s near my school. I see it every day, in the shop window, and I always thought -”

Phil, at a loss of what else to say, said, “you can show me. When we’re back. And then we’ll tell our parents, and everyone. When we’re back.”

He finally tied Dan’s scarf. He couldn’t even remember packing Dan a scarf. He definitely hadn’t packed himself one, he was wearing one of his Dad’s - blue tweed that made his eyes a stormy grey. Dan, doubtfully, said, “you don’t want to tell them now?”

“I want it to be just us now.” Phil patted around the scarf, the top of Dan’s jacket, under the pretence of trying to tidy it, but Dan ducked his head, left dimple deepening, and so Phil had kissed him instead.

It took a little while to start the walk into town.

At some point later, when they were walking in the fields behind the house, Dan had fallen while trying to take aesthetic photos of four different kinds of leaves, and Phil had laughed too hard to properly help him up, Dan lay on the ground (mud splattered all over his coat), like Ophelia on their piano, hand stretched up to Phil, laughing his most high pitched laugh, the real one, and Phil said, “hey, marry me.”

Dan stopped laughing but continued to dimple, both sides. “I already asked _you_.”

“Well, now I’m asking you.”

Dan rolled his eyes, fondly. “Yes. Obviously. Yes.”

And again later, crammed into the single bed, slightly drunk from cheap wine and also on each other, too tired to really do anything, Dan slowly tracing circles into the curve of Phil’s hip; Phil, mouth against Dan’s shoulder, said, “also, I think we should move.”

Dan paused for a second, with the circles, said, “I think that’s a good idea,” and resumed.

~*~

_The Fine Arts department of the London Metropolitan police are appealing for anyone who has information about a bizarre sequence of events yesterday, involving a number of fraudulent Van Gogh paintings being left around the capital, and a disturbance at the National Gallery. A representative stated, “nothing’s been stolen, and there isn’t anything missing. It’s all very strange.” The case is thought to be linked to a recent spate of returned artworks, however police state that they believe this recent spree is now at an end._

_Two men taken in for questioning following events at the Hayward on Saturday night have been released without charge._

“It wasn’t so bad,” Dan said, reading the newspaper over Phil’s shoulder. “They were very apologetic actually. The only thing they had any questions about was the wig.”

“And what did you say about that?”

“I said it was my new pastel aesthetic,” Dan replied.

Phil kept facing forward. “It wasn’t scary, though? Or anything. Because it could have been -”

“I don’t know. I was sort of preparing myself for the inevitable, I think Peej was too. I was hoping you’d gone somewhere safe but I think I knew that you hadn’t. So I guess I was preparing myself for the inevitability of you, really. And then we got out and there was a message and I knew, I _knew_ , where you would be. So I ran, halfway across London. And there you were.”

Phil blinked at _a disturbance at the National Gallery_ because his vision has suddenly gone misty. “He was going to give himself up. He pushed me through the ceiling, and he had _his_ envelope and he was going to -”

“There’s two ways out of that room,” Dan said. “You wouldn’t have known, but there are. You can’t save everyone because some people have to save themselves.”

It was a very deep conversation, for Judith-Jessica-or-Janice’s shop (she is leant right over the till, staring at them both). Phil didn’t buy the newspaper, he got a box of cereal for Dan and a Magnum for himself, and when he finished paying she said, “well, I see why you weren’t all that interested in Connor now.”

They both looked at Dan, who was standing outside taking photos of the sky (grey and storm filled, as it tends to be here), hair flying around his face in the wind, scarf already half untied.

“Yes,” Phil gestured to him. “That’s the reason why.”

~*~

They stayed a week, like they were meant to. A week of not doing very much really, but to Phil it seems like everything, and when Dan made a jokey comment, standing watching his mud drenched coat rattle around the ancient washing machine, about it being a new start, the cleaning away of his past, Phil had said, “no, I don’t want that. I thought that, now that we’ve got this time, just us, that you could tell me about it. All of it. Not just the parts I’m in.”

Dan clicked his tongue against his teeth. “All of it?”

“All of it.”

~*~

His mother, when he told her, said, “are you sure, darling? He’s a lovely boy but you haven’t really known him that long, have you? I know you moved in quickly but -”

“That’s not quite true,” he said. “I’ve known him a long time. Longer than I’ve said, really.”

He could hear her trying to do the Maths, working out the crossover. “But what about Dylan? And the -”

“Mum.” Phil took a breath and finally, finally, said, “there is no Dylan. There never was. _Dan_ is Dylan.”

They’d been waiting for his father to come in on the other phone, and this was the moment he finally chose to arrive, with an explosion of “Phil! Fantastic news!”

His mother, faintly, said, “well, _finally_.”

“What?”

“There was a photo of him on the Manchester Eye. In your frame. I was wondering when you’d -”

His father, now slightly confused, said, “congratulations?”

“Also, as if you wouldn’t move away with someone if they were going to look after baby pandas, Phil, _really_.”

Phil looked at Dan, who had just finished the call to _his_ parents, and was staring at Phil, open mouthed, still from the Dylan comment. “You don’t want to know why I said that?”

“I don’t care why you said that,” his mother replied. “He’s a lovely boy and you love him. You’re getting married. If you want to tell me one day then you can, on your say-so, but until then, let’s get started on the table plans.”

When he hung up, Dan said, “I,” and “you,” and then, finally, “I can’t believe you just told her. Like that. Like, that easily.”

“It was easy. I should have done it months ago.”

~*~

They find a house in Putney; close enough to the river that Phil can see it from their back garden, can hear the gentle sound of water breaking. He thinks that they could put a bench there, he could sit and stare out, Dan lying next to him, head in his lap.

Dan, standing next to him, says, “your new thinking spot?”

Phil replies, “I don’t know,” because the thinking spot had been for thinking of the not-so-nice variety, for wondering if Dan would come back, if _he_ should go back. It’s not for a time where Dan is here, stood beside him.

It has a garden, already filled with flowers and plants from the previous owner. Dan had told the estate agent that a garden was a “must. Like a complete deal breaker,” while Phil had stood and stared, overwhelmed and already naming each little flower patch in his mind.

There’s a cherry blossom tree, closer to the house, just about in bloom. Dan stands under it and holds his phone up, tilted slightly to get the best angle. “Take a photo with me.”

Phil obediently wanders over and presses his cheek to Dan’s, prepared for the inevitable six photos, selection of the best, the swipe through all the available filters -

Dan just takes one.

Phil, confused, says, “really?”

“What? This one’s perfect.”

~*~

_Employees at the Isle Gallery were amazed to find a lost masterpiece amongst their anonymous donation pile. Boreas, by John William Waterhouse was stolen from the gallery over eighteen months ago and, despite an extensive investigation, had not been recovered. It will be re-hung in its previous position during a gallery event next week._

There’s a picture of Connor, and someone that Phil assumes is the gallery owner, stood either side of Boreas. Connor’s smile is blinding, Phil can almost see the dazzle of it. Dan wrinkles his nose at him.

~*~

A week before they move Phil gets a postcard, addressed to just him (his name only, no address, obviously hand delivered). It’s turned face-up so when he opens their post-box he’s met with the sight of Llama in Meadow, as gloriously hideous and beautiful as ever. The Ways In Which We Show Love Without Realising.

The writing is neat, each letter exactly the same size. _Hi Phil. Sorry if you’ve maybe been trying to reach me on my phone, had to get rid of it. I’m okay (I said I would be, and I am), and thank you. I never said that to your face so sorry it’s on a llama postcard. See you around, possibly. Sean._

Jack’s flat looks the same as ever because, really, there was nothing to remove. The only thing gone is the envelope of Missed Connections.

Phil finds those later. Scattered in little pieces on the balcony, caught in the plants and floating in the lock below.

~*~

_The owners of Lavender Mist, a long missing Pollock masterpiece, set up a fresh appeal for its recovery yesterday. It was hoped, after an anonymous call to police, that the painting would be found, but this appears to have been a hoax._

~*~

He talks to Mark most days; sometimes with Dan, sometimes without. Mark sends emails and messages in all caps and Phil can hear his voice, the booming sunniness of it, as loud as if Mark was stood right next to him.

Mark has gone back to Ohio, because he hates LA. Phil doesn’t ask about the girlfriend. He thinks he might go to New York, find a job that suits his expertise.

Phil has never told him the truth about Almond Blossoms. One, it’s not his secret to tell, and two, that’s a story which has firmly had the cover closed and is pushed back onto the shelf.

The ring that Dan had bought is light silver, a thin band that is plain and simple, until it catches the sun and glows - a tiny supernova, an exploding star right on Phil’s fourth finger.

Mark, on Skype, says, “hey! Is that -”

(Dan’s ring is onyx black, a weight that sometimes catches on the piano keys, makes one note ring out louder than the rest. The rings don’t match at all. Except for the way that they completely do.)

“Yes,” Phil tells him. “It is.”

~*~

_The first showing of Monet’s Impression, Sunrise took place last night, at a special event in the Tate Modern. Melody Carter, who is finally releasing her grandfather’s collection after years of secrecy, stated that she was encouraged to “show off” the paintings after a discussion with “a very dear friend.” She would not confirm if this friend was Phil Lester, who readers will remember was the Tate security guard who stopped the heist of Llama in Meadow, and accompanied her to last night’s gala dinner._

Phil had worn a gold blazer, Melody had worn a bright yellow dress, the colour of sunshine. She thought it was too much, Phil had said, “no, I love yellow. Wear it.” They’d clashed horribly, the two outfits together, but he’d posed for every photo, her hand (proudly) placed on his chest like they were at a prom.

When they’d shown the painting, back-lit and glowing, Melody had cried. Phil, holding her hand, might have cried a little too.

~*~

A week later, in the Metro. _Me: an ex security guard. You: an ex tour guide, security guard, and a lot of other things. We: could be friends, still. If you needed one. Not going anywhere._

A week later. _To Ex Security Guard: you are a ridiculously nice person. Did I ever say that. Probably not, but you didn’t meet me at my best. You’re: not going anywhere but I: am, going lots of places. But I: said see you around and I meant it._

~*~

_Sophie Darbonne, who has been under house arrest for the past weeks following the discovery of Matisse’s The Piano Lesson, had all charges against her dropped yesterday. The Diego Carmona Foundation, which owned the painting, has opted not to pursue the case. A spokeswoman stated, “ we’re just happy that it’s back. That’s the main thing.” Attached is a photo of Mme. Darbonne in her rooftop garden. She declined all requests for an interview._

~*~

Melody says, “I didn’t know what to get you really, as a wedding present, or a housewarming present, but then I thought I had the most obvious thing. Right here.”

She holds out Claude, whose tiny, furry face lights up at the mere sight of Phil.

“He cries when you leave,” she says, as Phil cradles him against his chest.

“I know that feeling,” says Dan.

~*~

_The Little Gallery on the River is dismayed to report the second theft of its masterpiece, Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers, by Edgar Degas. The gallery owner, pictured by his new Ferrari, said, “I can’t believe this has happened again. I’ll never stop looking for it,” before leaving for dinner at the Ritz._

~*~

Martyn, panicking over the best man speech, says, “but how did you meet, just at work?”

Phil says, “no, he was an international art thief. He actually stole the Van Gogh.”

Martyn says, “ _seriously_ Phil.”

“It’s true.”

Martyn, in true big brother style, says, “ _mum_ , Phil’s not taking this seriously, I need -”

Their mother gives Phil an odd look and says, “he’s taking it seriously, dear.”

Martyn misses the look completely and just keeps talking. “I need it to be good. I need it to be all about your epic love story and that. Help me out.” He points his finger, dramatically, at Phil. “You didn’t meet in Manchester, you met at the Tate. You said.”

“We met in Manchester,” Phil tells him. “That’s what needs to go in your speech.”

~*~

Dan wants to wear black, obviously, and wants Phil to wear blue. Phil says, “I will, but you should wear the silver.”

Dan blinks. “The silver?”

He’d been the one to find it, the silver jacket, still stuffed under Phil’s pillow when they got back to the Camden flat. Phil had pulled it out of Dan’s hands as if the tear marks were still visible and said _it smells like you. That’s all_.

Dan repeats, “the silver.”

“That’s what I’d like you to wear.”

Dan is on their ipad, hand hovering over a whole list of McQueen suits, obviously prepared for a whole evening of looking at high end fashion, which is something Dan loves almost as much as he loves Phil. “You want me to marry you in a sequined jacket from ASOS?”

“Yes,” Phil says. “I do.”

Dan nods and says, “okay.”

He still buys a McQueen though. For the evening.

~*~

_The National Gallery is still hopeful for the return of its missing Turner masterpiece, Modern Rome-Campo Vaccino. The painting has been missing for almost two years, and the gallery owners were optimistic that it would be anonymously returned following a recent trend of recovered artworks. “We just wanted to send a reminder that it’s still out there, somewhere.”_

Dan, carefully, slowly, looks at Phil. “You don’t have to tell me, but -”

“It’s in the roof. They already have it. I climbed up and put it in the ceiling, above that room. They’ll find it. One day.”

Dan tries very hard not to look impressed, and fails. “In the ceiling.”

“I panicked.”

“No, you didn’t. You did the absolute best thing.”

~*~

PJ had produced a huge canvas of The Sea at Saintes-Maries as an engagement present and then, off Phil’s expression, said, “I didn’t steal it! It’s a copy, Hector’s final commission.”

The blue of the waves are the exact colour of Phil’s eyes. He swallowed, once, against the tears and said, “it looks real. It looks exactly like the real thing.”

“Well, that’s kind of Hector’s job,” PJ shrugged. “You’re not going to cry are you? I just thought it would be a nice gift for you.”

“It’s the best gift. It’s my favourite. Maybe. After Claude.”

PJ, desperate to stop the awkwardness, said, “also, a few weeks is a bit early for a stag party, right? Shouldn’t you enjoy being engaged before you get married?”

“We’re not waiting,” Phil gathered The Sea at Saintes-Maries into his arms. “We’ve waited long enough for each other, all things considered.”

PJ smiled. “Well, of course.”

~*~

They have their engagement/stag party at the Reprise because it seems like the most natural venue. Dan takes requests but makes Phil play them, Tyler (hair back to peppermint green) dances with Louise’s daughter, PJ and Melody give each other interested looks, Phil loves every single person in the room, is overcome with such joy that he can barely speak to any of them.

(They get sent an anonymous parcel, left at the bar with no note when everyone had been up gathered around the piano, listening to the speeches, leant neatly against one of the bar stools.

Phil knows it’s the final Almond Blossoms, the fake Almond Blossoms, the one that was good enough to pass as the real thing, before he even opens it.)

~*~

_Police in London are this week testing a painting found in the archives of the Tate Modern to see if it is the real New York Movie, which has been missing for almost three years. “It appears to be real but we can’t comment at this time,” said a spokesperson. “There’s no way of knowing how long it’s been in the archives for.”_

~*~

Phil stands, at the piano, in front of all his friends and family, under a banner that says “Happy Engagement!”, and says, “I don’t think I’ve told any of you how Dan and I met. Not properly anyway. So. I first saw Dan in a tiny museum in Manchester. He was a cleaner, but not really, he didn’t do that much cleaning. I was looking after a painting, you all remember, The Sea at Saintes-Maries. It’s my favourite but everyone just kind of rushed past it except Dan. I said oh hey, that’s my favourite painting, and he basically ran away from me.”

Everyone laughs, except for Mark, who has been sobbing noisily from the moment he sat down. Dan watches Phil the entire time, almost like he’s not breathing.

“I thought, no wait, stay. And by some miracle he did.”

(there’s some new additions to their photo frame; Dan with his class of students, sat on a piano stool while they stare at him adoringly, Phil in his third cap and gown, officially the holder of an editing post grad, Connor’s prints, an invitation to Melody’s first artwork showing, postcards from PJ, postcards from Mark, little paper flowers that Louise’s daughter has made them, a whole collection of Claude [who should have a frame of his own], all of the thank you cards from Dan’s students. All of the photos from Manchester, back where they belong, on display.)

They’ve hung The Sea at Saintes-Maries in their hallway, directly in the path of the sun that filters through from the picture window at the top of their stairs. Sometimes he jokingly says to Dan, _hey, meet me at the painting_ , before they go somewhere. It’s the first thing Phil sees when he gets home from work. The second thing he sees is usually Claude, bouncing happily towards him. Then the third thing he sees, the only thing he sees, the only thing he ever wants to see, is Dan, emerging sleepily from wherever he’s been and saying _hey, there you are_.

Everyone laughs again, fondly. Dan doesn’t, he catches Phil’s gaze and mouths _always_ , pulls his shirt collar.

Phil repeats, “he did stay. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The Sea at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer lives at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and is one of a series of paintings that Van Gogh painted in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
> 
> \- If I ever saw it in real life, at this point, I would probably cry. 
> 
> \- **Update:** I wrote a tiny Jack sequel in response to a tumblr ask. You can read it [here.](https://leblonde.tumblr.com/post/159936824550/okay-so-i-love-the-fic-and-its-amazing-but-as-a)
> 
> \- and, one more time, here is [Llama in Meadow](https://leblonde.tumblr.com/post/156113167600/silentorator-llama-in-meadow-is-both-the) by the wonderful [silentorator](http://silentorator.tumblr.com).
> 
> Thank you to everyone for leaving comments, kudos, tumblr asks/messages, just anything - thank you for reading it and liking it and saying lovely things. It means more than I can say <3
> 
> I love this verse v.much, hence why it has taken a year for me to finish, so I hope that you liked it too, and that you all now have some extra art knowledge in your lives! (for the moment, I consider this series complete, but who knows, maybe one day I’ll write a part three).
> 
> (I’m on tumblr at [leblonde](https://leblonde.tumblr.com). Come say hi!)


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